Quelle Valeur
by wisdomly
Summary: *NEW* Chapter 18 - things never happen exactly as planned, do they? Post-war. A chance meeting after the war between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy sparks sordid rumours in the press - thanks to the lovely Rita Skeeter - with long-lasting consequences for both boys. DH and epilogue compliant, light slash. Mostly friendship.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: Quel Talent, Quelle Valeur.**

The war. It's over. I can't believe it. I pant with fatigue, sleep-deprivation, the numerous curses inflicted by me and upon me, and most of all: relief. Sheer, abandoned relief that everything has finally finished. My head is buzzing with – what? – something painful and insistent. So many people are dead – _dead – _and it's my fault. I had no idea what death really meant until I had to – until I watched – well, alright. Let's not dwell on the past. Not that the future is looking so rosy, either. Right, let's dwell on the present. This bench is awfully uncomfortable. My hair is greasy and I'm starving.

"He did it," Mother mumbles, in that way she has of speaking without moving her mouth. Just for us.

"He bloody did," Father adds, in the same way. They marvel, eyes widened and shining behind the scratched, muddy faces they both have.

"Only Potter is annoying enough to get the Dark Lord to commit suicide." I quip.

"Son," Father snaps, flashing me a dangerous look "I won't hear you speaking like that anymore."

Mother clutches me, if possible, even tighter.

We wait out everyone's grief. I recoil from the sight of people dragging their loved ones, injured and dead, across the hall. I don't let myself wonder which ones I'm responsible for. No one comes over to us, and we don't go anywhere. Where can we go? The Manor will be closed to us before we get there, and I dread to think what the goblins have done with our Gold. I push away thoughts of consequences, but images of my family bound, shackled, and thrown in Azkaban chase themselves around my throbbing head.

It seems an age before the Auror, Shacklebolt, limps across the hall to us.

"Lucius, Narcissa, Draco. I have no paperwork to serve you, but as I'm standing in for Minister until we can organize an election, it's my duty to inform you that your trials are tomorrow. Good day."

He makes his way back across the hall, and Father starts muttering obscenities.

"Don't worry," soothes Mother, "we didn't flee, we stayed behind. That's got to mean something."

"We could run now," Father suggests. "The guards haven't been put back up."

"No!" Mother says. "After all we went through to find Draco, you want to put us all back in danger?"

"After all we went through, I don't want to put us in _Azkaban_."

Mother and I both shudder at this concept. But Mother's mind won't be changed, and she shakes her head.

"Go, if you like, but we're staying."

Father falls silent. We stood by him through this, and now it's his turn to stand by us.

I see the war survivors glaring at our family. Well, let them glare, I think. They could be sending much more than dirty looks our way.

A commotion from the head of the Great Hall causes us all to look up, and McGonagall is positively hobbling up onto the raised area where the teacher's table normally is. She's wrapped in bandages and it looks as though some of the curses she's been hit with will never heal. She's also batting away a very distressed looking Pomfrey, who's trying to feed her a potion.

"I apologise for interrupting your grief and celebration. But business must be attended to. This hall is filled with the dead, and the injured, and the living. An area of the grounds has been marked off, and funerals will begin tomorrow, for those of you wishing to bury your loved ones here. Madam Pomfrey, _if she leaves me alone as I am perfectly fine_, will be seeing to those that are lightly injured, and will forward the heavily injured to St. Mungo's. As for the living, you can stay on the grounds for as long as you need. We have beds, food, and safety for a thousand people." Her eyes pierce mine. "No one is exempt from this invitation, but those causing harm or trouble will be ejected. The Aurors will remain here for the duration."

"I can show you to my dormitory." I say to my parents, standing up, craving a long, dreamless sleep.

"I know where it is." Says Father. "Take your mother, I'll see you in a while."

"Lucius, wh-" Mother starts, but Father shakes his head. He wins this one, and she falls silent.

There's no password for the Slytherin common room, and two Aurors are guarding the door. They let us by, repeating the warning McGonagall issued.

Walking into my familiar room is surreal, after all that's happened. Everything is spotless, everyone's trunks aligned neatly at the end of their bed, contents folded inside, just like I always insisted. Zabini and Nott left Hogwarts before the battle, didn't want to get their hands dirty. Crabbe is dead, gone forever, and Goyle can never come back, he has fled with his parents.

Something uncomfortable, like guilt, creeps up my body and stings my eyes and nose. But I won't let it out. I made them stay. It was my idea to find Potter and deliver him to the Dark Lord. To save– but there are no excuses. It's my fault.

I climb into my own bed, and pull the curtains closed around myself to block everything else out. Sitting cross-legged on top of my covers, I put my knuckles to my eyes and try to think about something else. Tomorrow's trial. Lifetime in Azkaban, fully deserved. I wonder if there's any hope for us.

"Draco," comes Mother's voice, softly, from behind the curtain, "I'll be in the shower. Call if you need me."

I don't reply, and a moment later I hear the door to our en-suite click shut. This is the one of the stranger moments of my life. The first female in our dorm room is my own mother. Crabbe and Goyle would-

Shit, every time I think of them is like a punch in the stomach.

When Father finds his way to my dorm, and Mother is out of the shower, we sit around on a bed each. The awkward surreal feeling mounts, and I'm sure Mother and Father want to talk to each other in private judging by the expressions they're giving one another.

"I'll be back," I announce, standing to leave. I try my hardest not to sway as fatigue hits.

"Where are you going?" Mother asks.

"Perhaps to the kitchens, for food," I lie, repulsed by the very idea of eating at the moment.

"Alright," says Mother, frowning lightly, "don't be gone too long."

"Talk to Potter, if you can," Father suggests gravely. "Shacklebolt says he won't be asked to testify in the trials, but you may persuade him to, for yours."

My stomach clenches at the idea, but I nod and escape the dorm. I don't see the point of approaching Potter asking for anything resembling a favour to me.

I wander the castle aimlessly, wrapped up entirely in my own thoughts and worry. It's only when I step into a relatively hidden bathroom and catch my reflection that my mind is pulled back to the present. I'm a mess: my hair is an absolute state; my eyes have grey rings around them; my face is hidden by dirt, ash and blood from who-knows-where; and my lips are dry and cracked. I look pathetic.

I fill the sink with water several times trying to wash as much crud off me as possible. I dunk my whole head into the water and even rub my teeth with my finger - I hadn't brushed my teeth since the Dark Lord appropriated our Manor. Instead of coming out looking half-way presentable, removing the dirt makes me look even more starkly pale than before, accentuating my hollow cheeks and grey eyes. My hair falls in dripping tendrils around my face.

I used to be so into my looks, but now all I see looking back at me is a skinny, lanky boy with a permanent look of horror on his face. As I'm scraping my hair into what I hope is a more sophisticated style, I hear a loud crack behind me and spin around, terrified.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

My heart thuds rapidly at the noise that makes me jump and spin around rapidly. Shit, it's just Potter. He slammed the door behind him and now he's leaning against it, panting, and looking at me in shock. Why does he always find me in bathrooms with a wet face?

"Malfoy." He says by way of greeting, between pants. Water drips from my nose. I don't detect the normal waves of hostility radiating from him due to my presence. He probably doesn't have the energy.

He's not going to tell me why he's here, but I infer that he's hiding from the journalists, who I hear down the corridor. The castle must have been opened up to the non-war-fighting public, and of course everybody wants the scoop.

"Potter." I say, with only the slightest animosity. "You did it."

"What?" He says, distractedly, trying to peer back through the strip of frosted glass, keeping his hand on the doorknob.

"You defeated the Dark Lord. Remember? Pale bloke, bit of a temper?" I let my annoyance flare at his humble attitude.

Potter's head snaps in my direction, and he tries to assess me.

"Don't you start bloody fawning all over me as well, Malfoy." He says, nodding in the direction of the horde. "I couldn't take it if you turned into one of _them_."

"Not likely." I snort, inspecting my nails for something else to look at, while dredging up something witty to say. "I was just saying earlier how you're the only git annoying enough to get the Dark Lord to commit suicide. You didn't even have to curse him."

Potter cracks what looks like a painful smile. "I like it put that way."

I want to scathingly enquire about where his loyal sidekicks are, but it strikes me that they could be dead. I'm a bastard, but there's a line. Especially when he has a wand and I don't. Instead, I dry my face on a grubby towel.

The silence hangs around us, and it strikes me that we're standing in a room filled with toilets and surrounded by death. And that I don't have anything to lose.

"My trial is tomorrow." I blurt out.

"What? You didn't do anything." Potter says, shaking his head.

"I did enough." I reply, rubbing my left arm.

There's another long silence. I feel the competitive need to match Potter's gaze, which is ridiculously forthright. Seven years of knowing each other and we've barely looked at each other, really. He better not be thinking about how ugly I look, because he's not exactly gorgeous himself. I doubt his hair's seen a pair of scissors or a comb since he was _born_, he has sunken cheeks and a pale face to match mine, and he looks even more sleep deprived than I do. He has grown up a bit, though, as evidenced by the light stubble forming on his face.

"What will you do if you're found guilty?" He asks, suddenly, once he's finished eyeballing me.

I find the question stupid, so I resort to sarcasm. "I was thinking of an island holiday in Azkaban for a few years if that happens. To celebrate."

His annoyance blazes visibly, and I feel a small thrill. Minuscule, really. I watch him struggle to quell it.

"You're still a sarcastic bastard, Malfoy. I'd have thought you'd change, given what's happened."

Now, that stung. Except I can hide my reaction. "You know where to go if you want your arse kissed." I fold my arms and nod to the door, behind which I can hear people still milling around in the corridor, having lost Potter and not yet spotted the bathroom.

He glares at me and moves away from the door, as if to punctuate that an arse-kissing isn't what he wants. "What will you do if you're found _not_ guilty?"

Huh. What will I do? I suddenly envision a bright future, in which I could do anything. A list of suitable careers flit across my mind, working at Gringotts, for the Ministry, as a Professor... and I find I don't really want to do any of them. Then I become annoyed at this whole train of thought.

"What does it matter, it's not going to happen," I snap, "And it's none of your business anyway."

"Right." He says, struggling with annoyance again. He regains composure, and continues. "Except that it is my business, because if you're going to weasel out of this and continue being a Death Eater, then I'll take you to Azkaban myself right now and you won't even have a trial."

"A threat?" I retort, surprised and slightly impressed. "Think you could override the justice system?"

"There is no justice system any more, thanks to Voldemort."

My heart constricts painfully at the name - as though I can feel him right behind me, icy breath on my back. I almost flinch, but I've learned to quell it. A hard lesson.

Potter continues his train of thought, aloud, looking into the same mirror I looked at myself in. "Everything's in pieces; we have to sort out over a hundred trials, double that in funerals, and we have to do it as quickly as we can without being ruthlessly inaccurate. I don't want innocent people going to Azkaban."

I notice the use of _we_, and find it remarkable that he slots himself so easily into a leadership role when all about him is chaos. I feel my shoulders sag, resigned to my own fate, a curling blackness encroaching at the edges of my vision. "I'm anything but innocent."

Potter looks at me again, this time with shock, as if to verify it's still me talking. The silence goes on, giving my statement more meaning than I wanted. It's not like I meant to blurt my guilt in front of Harry flipping Potter, the umpteenth-time saviour of the Wizarding World. My parents would have a heart attack if they heard me.

"None of us are really innocent anymore." Potter says simply, and shrugs.

I remember the horrifying moment he walked in on me, what was it, two years ago? I remember thinking I could simply kill someone to fix everything. Being naively surprised that Potter would know a Dark Spell to slash me to ribbons in a mere minute. Facing death, being dimly aware of Potter's own little flirtation with murder. Clutching him tight enough to hurt when all about us, Fiendfyre raged. Seeing Potter's pathway to ultimate victory lined with corpses, many from his own side.

"So we all belong in Azkaban." I state, deliberately misinterpreting. I vaguely wanted to say it maliciously, but I suppose I don't have the energy, because it comes out softly.

Potter shakes his head, in a sort of rueful way. "No, I'm starting to realise... This whole thing isn't simply innocent versus guilty. Evil people can do good things, and good people can do evil things. I saw Gellert Grindelwald."

My eyebrows raise involuntarily. "_The_ Grindelwald? He's still alive?"

"Not anymore." Potter actually appears sad about this, and my expression becomes even more confused. "His final act was good, and heroic, and he felt genuine remorse for all the terrible things he did."

I'm getting a bit creeped out by this point. Is he bloody omnipotent or something? My eyes narrow. "How do you know this stuff?"

Potter closes off, looking sad. "It's not important how I know. Just that I do. I know that in all kinds of circumstances, people do all kinds of things, even people you don't expect. "

All the horrendous things I've done flash in my head, one after the other, as though I'm torturing myself with Occlumency. I fish around for a subject change, quickly. Then I think, why am I having a lengthy conversation with Potter? I might as well get to the point.

"Look, I know you aren't going to testify at the trials, but if you did it for my mother they'd listen to you... she couldn't cope in prison. And she doesn't even have the Mark, it was all me and Father..." I picture my mother, golden haired and broken in a freezing, dank cell. Potter's jaw sets and his glasses suddenly frame icy, hard eyes.

My insides go cold to match, hope draining from me. But then, I expected this.

"Why do you think I won't testify?" He snaps, stance immediately aggressive. "Think I'm too lazy? Absorbed in my own glory?"

"What?" I say, shocked and slightly defensive. "It's nothing to do with me, Shacklebolt says you won't be asked to."

"Why not?" Potter says, flicking his hair out of his eyes with annoyance, like he has done since we were First-Years. It has the added effect of prominently displaying his usually half-hidden scar.

"Don't ask me." I shrug, trying to appear unconcerned. I start to bring the subject back to my mother, but Potter scowls and stomps back to the door. "But if you—"

"We'll see about this." He says, and wrenches the door open.

With that, Potter leaves, and noise flares as journalists start tossing questions his way. I hear him yelling at them to sod off, but they persist.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: Can't Buy Me, Love.

When the noise from Potter's swarm of journalists has died down, I step out of the bathroom feeling useless and all of a sudden craving sleep. I get to the end of the corridor, ready to descend the stairs to the Dungeons when I hear an odd ticking noise. It's getting nearer.

I spin around and come to face to face with Rita Skeeter, who is wearing immaculate robes and an oily smile. Her nails flash and she has her quill and parchment out before I finish blinking in shock.

"Draco, darling," she says chummily, "what juicy tidbits have you got for me today? I'm just _dying_ to know."

I feel an unexpected surge of dislike towards the woman I used to admire so much, unscarred from the war and hoping to profit from it. I mask it, knowing what she writes about people who challenge her.

"I hear You-Know-Who has been vanquished," I say, off-handedly. "Other than that, I've been out of the loop."

Skeeter laughs, false and high, and coils her arm around my shoulder, her fang-like nails digging _just so_ into my bicep. Not enough to hurt, but _there_.

"Malfoy, Malfoy..." she patronises, "I am one of the most brilliant minds in the newspaper industry. Seeing Potter, face like thunder, storming from a bathroom? I wonder… what could have made him angry in there? Not a clogged toilet, surely? While everyone was crowding around the poor boy, stupidly expecting an answer to their half-baked questions, I simply stepped back to wait. My job was done for me as I saw you come out of the very same bathroom, not three minutes later."

Her eyes gleam in my direction, and her perfume cloys in my throat. My brain is whirring, knowing I can't tell her anything to do with Potter because she'll twist it. I try to put on a dumbfounded expression, like a slow child.

"I know there's a story here," she says, sweetly. "And I hope you'll tell me what it is, for your own sake and that of the public. What will it take? Money?"

My heart starts hammering adrenaline around my body. "There's no story... I was just using the toilet."

My lie is atrocious, and I know it. I can't think straight, with an insistent buzz of panic in the back of my head. If Potter's in the papers because of me, Skeeter will surely quote me with something, and if he sees it, there's no way he'll do anything for Mother. He'll think I'm up to my old tricks, and I couldn't blame him if he did.

Skeeter's giving me a _you can do better than that_ look.

"There's nothing more I can tell you." I shrug, trying to project an air of innocence. Her nails dig deeper, and I gasp.

"Draco, I thought we were friends?" Her voice sounds falsely hurt. "I thought we could help each other out..."

I don't say anything, and she releases me roughly, expression malicious.

"No matter, Malfoy. I don't need your account of events, I'll simply report what I saw. That is, two _very_ good looking boys coming out of a bathroom, looking flushed..." She begins writing, her quill almost a blur. "One the saviour of the wizarding world, one a Death Eater on trial for murder... The forbidden fruit angle... Lover's tiff... Kind of writes itself, don't you think?"

I lunge forward involuntarily, my eyes wide. I try to grab her quill but she expertly dodges me. "Shit-!"

"Hitting a nerve, am I?" She trills, joyfully. "See you at your trial, Malfoy."

Her wand flicks out and I feel a pulse of magic against my chest as her heels clatter away from me, sending me stumbling backwards. Regaining my footing, I run back through the archway to follow her.

I stop short. She's gone. _How...?_

Perhaps she Apparated, I think as I trudge back to my common room. Head throbbing, dangerously close to passing out, I ignore my parents who are embracing in the middle of my dorm. I climb into bed, and close the curtains. Mother's worried face disappears and is replaced with green hangings.

Before I can even toss and turn in turmoil, or tell my family how I've made everything worse, darkness enfolds me and I know nothing more.

A few hours later, I jolt myself awake in panic. Night has fallen, and it takes me a moment in the blackness to realise that I'm at Hogwarts, safe in bed, rather than where my nightmares took me. After I get over the feeling of the Dark Lord's looming, icy presence which has me frozen in terror, my muscles unlock and I can swing my legs out of bed.

My parents - in separate beds - are breathing low and steady. I look at them, just lumps under their respective duvets, and wonder how I'm going to break it to them that not only is Potter _not_ going to testify on my behalf, but now will probably testify _against_ us, because I managed to piss him off then ran straight into Skeeter to give her an exclusive interview. At least that's how Skeeter will write it.

I look at the clock on the wall and my heart gives an almighty lurch as I realise the trial is later _today._ It's past midnight. I can't put this off. I creep over to the lump that is Mother, and stand watching her for a moment. Suddenly, there's a noise behind me, from Father's bed. Heart thudding in the suddenly broken silence, I turn to listen.

"Nughh... Not Draco, send me... anyone but Draco... Kill me instead, anything, please..." He says, soft and strained, as his body twists rigidly, as though his muscles are locked and he's fighting it. Shame washes over me. I stand still in the renewed silence, heart pounding with resolution _not_ to fuck this up.

I won't have to tell them. Maybe if I talk to Potter, he'll understand I didn't mean for it to happen, and he can probably even pull his strings at the Ministry to stop Skeeter publishing the article. She's probably been working on it all night, to have it in this morning's paper.

I silently tread across the room and up the stairs to the common room. The fire is dying, illuminating all the gleaming wood and dark furnishings like they're hunched in shadows, and a chill steals across me. Outside the room, the Aurors snap to attention when they see me.

"Where are you going?" The shorter, muscled one asks, igniting his wand.

"I need to speak to Harry Potter." I say boldly.

They look at each other, confused. They've clearly had their suspicions about what I might get up to after nightfall, but my openly approaching them with my plans obviously hadn't crossed their minds.

"Potter's under security," the taller, female Auror says. "What do you want with him?"

"I have... information." I lie, but it's close to the truth. "About a plot against him."

"You can tell us that." Says the shorter Auror. "We can pass it on."

"I'm not telling anyone else," I snap, "it's sensitive."

"Tell you what," says the taller, "we'll take you to his tower, and speak to the Aurors there, and they'll decide whether to fetch him for you."

I sigh, but nod my agreement even though I really don't have time for this.

"Wait, Bruckley-" says the shorter, "if we both go, who'll keep watch over the other Malfoys?"

The taller, Bruckley, thinks about this for a moment. "This could be part of a plan to compromise security. One of us could go with him, and the other could-"

"Could what? Be clobbered from behind by two full-grown suspects? You know the rule, Bruckley - one Auror per adult suspect."

"You're right." Bruckley scratches her chin. "I'll send them a message, one of them could come down here..."

"Send it straight to Potter." I order, patience in shreds. "Let him know Draco Malfoy has important news and it can't wait. He can bring an Auror if he feels so _compromised_."

Bruckley glares at me, not happy with taking orders, but acquiesces. A small silvery shadow bursts from her wand and flies off, leaving a trails of wispy silver behind.

"Impressive," nods the shorter Auror, "though why is your Patronus a rat?"

"It's a pygmy marmoset," Bruckley says sharply, "looks nothing like a rat."

"Well it's small like one. With a tail like one."

"It's the smallest monkey in the world, living in the Amazon basin and-"

He puts his hands up in a stopping motion. "Alright, alright. I only asked."

Bruckley rolls her eyes, and they fall on me. "You. You'll have to surrender your wand and allow your person to be searched."

"I don't _have_ a wand." I speak through my teeth, regretting this fact. "Or any other implements."

"We'll see about that." The shorter one bustles over, running his own wand up from the back of my neck down the back of my body, and the same down my front. He forces my arms apart and goes down my sides too.

"Ah! Careful, you idiot, that tickles." I reprimand, trying not to wriggle.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Hearing a chuckle at my back, I twirl ungracefully to face Potter. Being caught spread-eagled and frisked wasn't the way I wanted the start of this meeting to go. I flap my hands in annoyance at the Auror, who still wants to probe me.

"How did you get here so quickly?" I say, annoyed, to Potter.

Potter shrugs. "Shortcuts. Did you want to see me or not?"

I nod, and turn towards the common room. "Come on, you'll need to be sitting down for this, and the fire is still going."

Potter snorts. "Not likely. You can tell me what's going on out here."

"We really don't have time to argue, and this is _private_." I say quietly, dredging up a Saint's share of patience.

He gives me a sceptical look, and I shoot him a look that hopefully shows how important this is, and that I'm not kidding around.

"Then we'll go to Gryffindor, it's safer." He says shortly, and turns on his heel. I shrug and follow, glaring at the Aurors at my back.

"Potter, are you sure you should be travelling alone with him?" Bruckley calls. "He's supposed to be in custody for..."

Her voice gets quieter and fades as we ascend and go through a door. Walking down the snaking corridor towards the entrance hall, Potter turns unexpectedly and moves behind a tapestry.

Fear strikes without warning. Did he hear something? Is he hiding? I trot behind him, shifting the tapestry aside. To my surprise, it opens to a short corridor and a thin stone staircase. _Shortcuts_.

Before I know it, though not before several hundred thousand flights of stairs, we're on the seventh floor, outside a portrait of a larger-than-life lady who is dozing, and which is guarded by two more Aurors, one of whom is Shacklebolt.

"Why did you bring him back here?" He questions, not angrily exactly, but he gives me a _look_.

"He's harmless." Potter says, and my pride feels a sting. "And he says it's private."

We're let through without further question, but Shacklebolt and Potter exchange a look that says to be careful. Even _I_ could be an Auror at this rate, from what I've seen of their subterfuge.

After an awkward clamber through the hole behind the Portrait, I straighten up and flatten down my robes. Taking a step into the room, I gasp at the sight.

The fireplace is absolutely massive and the fire is crackling. There are large, comfy-looking chairs dotted around, and a small table in the middle of the room piled high with sandwiches and drinks. The room is circular, with a colour theme of deep red and bright gold. The total and absolute opposite to the Slytherin common room.

My eyes snap back to the food, and I can't help but push Potter to one side as I go over to it and start wolfing down the sandwiches. I had no idea how hungry I was. How long has it been since I've eaten? My stomach painfully reminds me with a constricted grumble that it's been days.

"Not to interrupt your important, private meeting with my sandwiches, but do you mind telling me what's going on that you _had_ to see me at one o'clock in the morning?" Potter says, getting my attention back.

I draw myself up with dignity, cheeks bulging. Chewing hastily and washing it down with a gulp of steaming, sugary coffee, I face Potter once more.

"You know our... our conversation, earlier."

"In the bathroom?" Potter clarifies, making me bite back a sarcastic retort about stating the bleeding obvious.

"Well, it's not my fault, but Skeeter's going to write about us having a scandalous love affair or something because I wouldn't tell her what we were talking about and she saw me come out after you so she assumed the worst and there was nothing I could do because she used-"

"Wait." Potter puts a hand up to stop my story, which admittedly ran away with me a little bit. "Which part of this is _not_ your fault?"

"She cornered me!" I say defensively. "It's not like I sought her out."

"What did you say to her?" He says dangerously.

"I didn't tell her anything." I snap.

"I'm not asking what you didn't tell her," Potter says, impatience evident in his expression. "What _exactly_ did you say to her."

"I said I was just using the bathroom, and there's no story." I think back to the moment. "She dug her nails in me, and said she was going to write one anyway."

Potter's expression darkens. "Sounds like her."

"Exactly." I say, glad to have convinced him.

"What I don't understand is… what we talked about wasn't particularly important or earth-shattering. Why couldn't you tell her that?"

"If the papers had quoted me as telling tales about you, especially with Skeeter's lies, you'd have thought I'd done it out of malice." I don't add "_like the old days"_, but it's heavily implied.

"So instead of making me mildly angry by telling Skeeter the truth, you thought to give me a heart attack by telling her nothing. I don't see why you couldn't stick with plan A."

"Firstly," I stick up a finger, "I didn't know she'd threaten me with _that_ story. Secondly, I was trying to have some _integrity _about the whole thing. Thirdly, she ran off, so I couldn't even cut a bargain or blackmail her."

"You didn't run after her?" Potter accuses.

"Of course I did." I snap back.

"Then you're a bloody slow runner!" Potter says forcefully. "And tomorrow morning, it's me that's going to have to suffer because you couldn't stay out of trouble, _again._"

The injustice of this strikes me like a physical blow, and I draw myself up to my full height. "This mess is _not_ my fault."

"Funny, because I'm not the one who talked to Rita Skeeter. I'm sure you're really good mates with her."

At this point I'd really like my wand back, if only to thrust it up Potter's nose. I settle with saying, "oh shut up. I shouldn't have even come and told you."

I make as if to storm past him. But he puts a hand up again, and uses the other to pinch the bridge of his nose. I wonder if he's slept.

"She'll be at the Ministry, probably all night." He says in a resigned monotone. "We'll have to go and talk to her. That's if she hasn't already told everybody her story idea. Did you see where she ran to?"

"Dunno. She was gone, vanished. Disapparated, or something." I shrug.

Potter drops his hand, and a gleam comes to his eye, a smile spreading across his face. "You can't Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts."

"Well I expect the wards are broken, what with one thing and another."

"No, that's not the point. Skeeter won't publish the story, not if Pig has anything to do with it."

At this moment, I'm completely lost. Who - or what - is Pig? Must we get more people involved?

"What _are_ you on about, Potter?" I say bluntly. No time for tact.

"It doesn't matter. I'll sort this out." He pauses, and looks at me. "I'd say thank you for telling me, but you probably did it to save your own arse, not mine."

"Exactly," I say, folding my arms again. "If this got out, you probably wouldn't even _think_ of help-"

I snap my mouth shut, cursing myself for letting my guard down enough for that to slip out. Potter regards me with a closed off expression on his face, like he does when he's trying and failing to hide his emotions.

"You thought you'd pass this off as a favour so I'd save your arse tomorrow?"

"_I _don't need your help, Potter." I snap, with all the hostility I can muster. But then, it fades from me in a sigh and I'm left feeling about two inches tall. "But you _are_ the only one who can help my mother. And if you testify against me or our whole family because of this stupid thing with Skeeter, then-"

"You think I'd do that out of spite?" He looks as though the thought never entered his head. Which I suppose is one thing.

I shrug. "It wouldn't be spite, would it... You'd just think I'm an evil bastard, like I'm still some scheming Death Eater or something."

"You _are_ an evil bastard." Potter says, matter-of-factly.

I open my mouth to retort, but he turns to grab some parchment and a quill, and looks back at me. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"I'm going to Owl Skeeter, you're going back to the dungeons."

"What will you say to her?" I'm annoyed now, at being pushed out of the loop at this juncture. "I'm coming with you."

"She's an illegal Animagus." He says. "And if she wants to stay out of trouble, she won't publish lies."

Oh, yeah. I had completely forgotten that she was a beetle. At the time, I didn't know or care whether it was legal or not. Now I'm positively thrilled that we've got something against her.

"You can go back to the dungeons, it's late. I'll sort this." Potter says.

"Yeah right. I doubt you know the first thing about blackmailing people, and I don't trust you to do it properly." I say, and Potter rolls his eyes and walks off.

Shacklebolt gives us another searching glare as we step out and head off in the same direction. Potter doesn't appear to have patience for people who try to tell him what's best, and Shacklebolt probably knows this, so keeps quiet.

The Owlery is chilly and silent at this time of night, and I find out Pig is the name of Potter's owl. It's a small, fluttery, excitable thing, and it's bothering us while we're trying to write the note to Skeeter.

"Dear ... Skeeter..." Potter says as he writes, flattening the parchment against the wall. He pauses. "What now?"

"We don't have time for this. Will your miniature owl be able to get to London by daybreak?"

Potter looks unsure. "Maybe not. Shall we send it by Floo?"

"We should send _ourselves_ by Floo," I say, "then threaten to pulverise her."

He looks at me in mild alarm. "That can be plan B. I'll stick the envelope into the fire and she'll get it in her office straight away."

We spend the next ten or so minutes deciding what to write. Which is mostly me telling Potter off for being so bloody _polite_.

"I can't help it," he says, defensively, "I've never done this sort of thing before. I only write polite letters."

"Think of what you'd say to her face if you saw her." I advise, knowing how much he hates her.

I see him summon her inside his head, and he scowls. Then begins to write furiously.

"What are you putting?" I say, leaning over his shoulder to read.

Potter squirms. "Go away, I can't concentrate with you hovering."

"Let me just read it then," I say, reaching out to grab it.

"Not yet, let me finish it!" Potter moves it out of my reach, elbowing me in the chest to keep me away.

I'm knocked backwards a step, and I huff, crossing my arms and crunching over the floor. What an annoying git. Who _can't_ write with someone near them? No wonder he does so terribly in exams.

As soon as he's signed it, I snatch it from his hands.

Skeeter,

You were warned about keeping your quill to yourself and not publishing lies. Unless you keep to your word on this, everyone's going to know just how much you BUG me.

Yours,

Harry Potter

I raise my eyebrows at Potter, who's face is seeking approval.

"It's passable." I remark, tone neutral.

"Right." Potter frowns, and snatches it back. "No thanks to you. You can go now, I'll get this to Skeeter."

I sigh, glad this whole episode is coming to a close. I leave the owlery, rubbing my head. I'm starting to get really tired again. And I still haven't actually had a straight answer from Potter about whether he'll testify or not. But I've put up with too much of his crap already, so I head back to the dungeons. I smirk nastily at the Aurors as I stride past, and slip into bed without another sound.

I don't know if I sleep properly, but the next thing I know my whole world is shaking, collapsing around me, and I open my eyes with a scream.

"Bloody hell Malfoy." Remarks Bruckley, her hands still on my shoulders. "I think my ears popped."

"Wha? Muh?" I grunt, struggling to sit up. "What is it?"

I feel a dash of panic: _have I overslept?_

"Harry Potter's outside, waiting for _you_ apparently." She says, disbelief evident in her tone.

I look over at my parents; Father's sat bolt upright, fist clenching a non-existent wand. Mother's eyes shine with worry in my direction. A million possibilities flit through my head, except the worst one. I flash an apologetic look over to my parents, unseen by Bruckley, and follow her from the room, back to the Slytherin entrance.

When I step out of the common room, I'm grabbed roughly by the arm and dragged unceremoniously away. I attempt to wrestle, but my lack of upper body strength and complete tiredness is just making me flail like a ragdoll. It's only when I'm let go of, and I stumble into my captor, that I can dredge up words.

"What the _hell, _Potter?" I straighten up and pat myself down so I don't look _too_ bed-rumpled.

It's only when he snaps open the folded paper under his arm that I pause, and my mouth drops open.

_POTTER AND MALFOY – A LITTLE FLUSHED?_

_By Rita Skeeter_

_Rumours were abound last night after Harry Potter, who has shrugged off a handful of Killing Curses to become the saviour of the wizarding world, and Draco Malfoy, Death Eater on trial for murder and chaos, were seen cosying up together in a bathroom at Hogwarts shortly after the Battle ended. No one can blame Mr. Potter for seeking comfort after everything he's been through, and while Draco Malfoy is a handsome young man with good breeding, we at the Daily Prophet believe his propensity for evil deeds spells certain doom for any burgeoning relationship. However, Mr. Potter may not listen to reason, as he has become infamous for defying expectations and flouting tradition, which may be why he is so attracted to such forbidden fruit. When questioned, Malfoy Jr.'s naturally malicious demeanour juxtaposed with his angelic face sent a shiver down my spine, indicating a potentially nefarious scheme to avoid Azkaban. This reporter believes ... CONT'D PAGE 7._

"What the fuck?" I snatch it from him in horror. "Did you even _send_ the letter?"

"Yes I sent the fucking letter!" He rages, then makes a conscious effort to breathe. "She doesn't care."

I'm struck by a bitter thought that twists my mouth into a smirk as I speak. "With all that's going on, no one's going to care about prosecuting an illegal Animagus."

Potter's fists clench so hard his arms shake. I suddenly worry that he'll take it out on me, so I step back. I glance at his face, and it looks like he must have slept. His hair is more rumpled than usual, and his eyes are squinty.

"You're going to have to think of something." His voice is strained with the effort of being calm. "To fix this."

"Not really my concern," I say, projecting nonchalance. "Won't affect me where I'm going."

"Oh yeah." Potter has the grace to look ashamed. "That's today."

"At nine o'clock actually, so unless you can shred every known copy of the _Daily Prophet_ before then..."

"I'm still going to report her for being an illegal Animagus. Hopefully she'll be sent to Azkaban and this whole horrible mess will become old news." Potter says forcefully.

Liquid dread starts thudding its way through my veins at the mention of Azkaban, but I mask it with a sarcastic comment. "Great, who needs Dementors when I could be cellmates with Skeeter for the rest of my days."

"Right." Potter looks awkward. "I'll leave you to your optimism then, while I sort this out."

I give him a brief nod and start back towards the dorm. I feel a sudden jolt of alarm that I've forgotten _again_ to ask whether he'll testify for my mother.

"Potter, wait-" I turn to go after him down the long hallway, but he's already gone. Damn.

Instead of going back to Slytherin, I decide I should probably have breakfast before the trial, since it might be my last decent meal. I just hope I can keep it down.

After I've eaten, the hollow, churning feeling in my stomach is replaced by a churning, rather lumpy feeling. When my parents join me, we sit close together in silence. Father's jaw is set, and Mother picks up her toast, looks at it, and puts it back down several times.

The Slytherin table is completely empty, so I watch other people trickle in. Some students are with their parents, some are without, and some adults are clearly parents without their children any more – they don't look around, and appear utterly defeated. The Weasleys trudge in, looking rumpled and tired and bereft of a few members. Granger looks awkward, hovering around the outside of the flaming-haired group. Potter's not there.

My view is blocked by a dark shape – one of the Aurors who was guarding our common room.

"Come on sunshine, off we go." She chirps casually, despite dark-ringed eyes.

We all stand up glumly, to be shackled in front of everybody and led out of the Great Hall.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **I'd like to quickly thank people for subscribing and/or reviewing. It feels good :)

**Chapter Five**

It may be the understatement of the century, but from my point of view, things are looking rather grim. I've never enjoyed visiting the Ministry at the best of times, and am now sat festering within its bowels, awaiting trial. I was dragged out of Hogwarts and struck by a panic so enormous that I can't even remember how we got here. I'm surrounded by other prisoners, some immediately recognisable and some covered with hoods. From their garments, I presume they spent the night in Azkaban after they were arrested. Our mouths are charmed shut and we're left to sit at the back of the room. At what must be the stroke of nine, a man steps out with a long scroll of parchment, and calls out a name. The trials have begun.

My mind goes into a sort of closed-down, self-preservation state when my name is called and I'm escorted through to the courtroom chamber. I see the crowd of war survivors in rows all around me, as if through water. They're blurry and they sound like they're a million miles away. My chains shake around me, though I'm standing still. I'm pressed into a chair, which snaps more chains around my ankles, wrists, and stomach.

I hear the Chief Wizengamot speak, the judge who spent so many dinner parties getting drunk and complimenting Mother. He's listing my crimes, I think.

"...Crucio, the Imperius curse... Inciting hatred... bodily harm... murder... illegal use of the Protean Charm to... aiding and abetting the murder of Albus Dumbledore... entrance to Hogwarts grounds by non-approved personnel..."

The words feel like physical blows. I cannot speak. My throat feels clogged with shame. The rest of the talking around me is just noise. I can't even look up and say anything in my own defence. The most I can do is simply not beg, and not tarnish the family name with cowardice. Again.

There's a silence, and the witches and wizards that make up the Wizengamot all have their sharp gazes on me. I feel the back of my neck prickling with horror at what they're about to say.

"Draco Malfoy, you have presented no witnesses, made no comment in justification nor offered any remorse for your crimes. This leads me to believe—"

"Wait," commands an out-of-breath voice at the chamber door, "I want to speak in Malfoy's defence."

My head snaps up and my heart expands with - something.

"Harry Potter?" The Chief Wizengamot shares my surprise, evidently. A chorus of muttering springs up around the chamber.

Potter is leaning against the doorframe of the chamber, panting slightly. "Yes. A lot's been happening. I got here as quick as I could."

"Well, that's understandable," says the Chief Wizengamot, "have a seat... I suppose."

The Chief Wizengamot summons a chair from the ground beside me, and it looks exactly like mine except there are no shackles.

Understandably, Potter doesn't look like he wants to sit in it. Instead, he walks over and stands next to it, his robes brushing against my chains. When our eyes catch, his are blank, but he nods. I read his eyes with practiced ease: He wants me to trust him.

I can't help the flicker of disbelief that crosses my own face, and he looks away.

"So..." Starts the Chief Wizengamot, when he realises Potter isn't going to sit down. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to defend Malfoy." Potter says shortly. "He's no Death Eater."

"Mr. Potter, he has the Mark... he was found both at the scene of Albus Dumbledore's death and at Hogwarts when You-Know-Who invaded. How can _you_ of all people disagree with these facts?"

"I don't disagree he was _there_," says Potter simply, "but he didn't kill anybody, and he didn't want to hurt anybody."

"And what evidence do you have to back this up?"

"Um..." Says Potter. "Well, eye-witness evidence, I suppose. He didn't do any harm in Hogwarts during the battle, I know he didn't hurt Dumbledore, and I know his family was threatened with death or worse if he didn't carry out orders. I _know_ Malfoy didn't really want to do any of it."

After the shock of this statement reverberates in the room, the Chief Wizengamot composes himself enough to speak.

"And how, may I ask, do you know these things?"

Potter tenses beside me. Then I hear him take a deep breath. This is a whole new experience for me, being close enough to feel his every reaction. It's freaking me out. I have to keep my eyes averted, because looking surprised at any of this information won't help my chances.

"Well..." Potter starts, to a very eager audience. "When Dumbledore died... I was there."

I feel a thud of... something. Right in my stomach, as if my heart has turned to coal and dropped from my chest. I wasn't exactly at my best on that particular evening.

"You were in the castle?" Clarifies the Chief.

"I was... on the Tower. Invisible and immobilised by Dumbledore." Potter looks ashamed of himself. "Dumbledore knew that the Malfoys were being threatened, he offered them protection. Malfoy didn't hurt him."

"Did Mr. Malfoy accept this protection?" Queries a wizard at the back of the room.

"No. He was too scared." Potter says. I feel a familiar prickle of annoyance that Potter is adept at bringing out of me. _Scared_ isn't the term I'd use, personally. _Absolutely shitting terrified_, more like.

"So he refused the protection and was acting completely of his own free will? He wasn't under Imperius?" Says the wizard, rather petulantly.

"Terror is a more effective motivator than any spell, and no one knew that better than Voldemort." Potter says, clearly annoyed at this wizard.

I feel a flicker of shock at just the mention of Him, as if his shadow has passed icily across my skin, and the wizard in the back row drops from his seat out of sight. Potter has started being strategic in his use of the name, it occurs to me.

"Well," begins the Chief Wizengamot, still with a surprised tone, "there is surely no greater evidence for one's innocence than Harry Potter himself running to one's defence. Mr. Malfoy, what I presumed to be nonchalance on your part, I can see now may simply be the quiet horror of a young man who got caught in a dreadful situation over which he had no control."

I still don't speak. My heart is thumping harder now, as if it has a reason to fuel my body. A tendril of hope coils itself round my chest. Maybe I won't spend my life in Azkaban, after all.

"All those who find Mr. Draco Malfoy innocent, raise your hand." Says an official court-Witch. I don't look up, I daren't, and after a pause while she tots it up, she continues. "All those who find Mr. Malfoy guilty, raise your hand."

"I'm going to have to conclude, overall, that we find you not guilty." Says the judge, shuffling some papers. "You may leave."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter six**

Fireworks explode in my brain, and my chains snap off, all of them. I stand up, mouth wide open. I refrain from saying "_really_?" which I'm sure would only hurt my chances at this point.

I rush from the room, hoping to find my parents and tell them the good news. Then I realise they're probably being isolated somewhere before their own trials, like I was. Or maybe they've already been sentenced? How do I find out? I wander the corridors for a while, checking ante-chambers and asking several people what's going on.

After getting absolutely nowhere, and several painful jabs in the ribs from rushing Ministry workers, I decide to wait back outside the courtroom. Speeding up my walk to a stride, I round the corner to the large corridor I started in, and before I've gone two steps I collide with a solid mass. Potter.

"Potter." I say guardedly. "I didn't need your help."

"Right. Looked like you were doing fine in there." He deadpans.

"I didn't ask-"

"No, you didn't. You cared more about your Mother, which actually made it easier to be on your side."

Heat builds in my face but I ignore it and focus on getting answers.

"Is she okay, then?"

"Yeah, I just got done in-"

All of a sudden, a magically bright flash makes me jump, and I yank Potter down by the sleeve as I duck the impending curse. We both hit the floor with an exhalation of breath and a thud.

"What the bloody hell?" Potter demands, tearing his sleeve out of my grip and clambering up. "Have you gone insane?"

I stay on the floor, slightly winded, and point to the back of a man who is fleeing the corridor. "Him! He was trying to- I was saving-"

"-just a reporter you bloody-" Potter stops short, and looks quizzical. "Saving what?"

My face goes warm as I see a green mist around us, signalling a camera flash, not a killing curse. I purse my lips, trying not to appear embarrassed. Potter's look of confused expectancy fades and is replaced by a creeping glee.

"Oh, wow, you thought it was-"

"Of course I did! Sorry if I haven't yet adjusted to the fact that no one wants to kill us any more." I snap, getting awkwardly to my feet.

"Well, _someone's _going to want to kill us when we're in the paper as a pair of smitten idiots clutching at each other." Potter grimaces, but still looks amused.

Ugh. I can vividly picture the front page tomorrow. I try to change the subject.

"Where did you say my parents were?"

"They were tried separately, I just got done testifying for your mother. I was told to wait out here so I can sign some things after."

"Was she cleared?"

Potter shrugs. "I don't know, the Chief Wizengamot was getting pretty pissed off that I kept barging in. Said I was 'colouring the court's opinion without relevance to the facts'. So he made me wait out here."

"What did you say in her defence?" I can't help but ask.

Potter looks slightly affronted. "I'm not going to tell you _that._ Would you like everyone knowing your story?"

I feel a sting. "You don't _know_ my story."

"I was inside Voldemort's head." Potter says, his face twisting in an ugly way. "I know enough of it."

My heart stops for a few beats, just at the ice cold horror of being forced inside _his_ head... Mix that with the shame that _Potter_ of all people knows what a coward I was, what horrible things I did, what atrocities are now rotting inside me. I close my eyes and lean my head back against the window. Shit.

"What will your parents say?" Potter gestures to the court chamber behind us. "You know, when they see it."

Thankfully, I don't have to answer that horribly intrusive question, because Mother comes bursting out and I stand up and walk towards her. She practically runs to hug me – I'm taller than her, now, I notice – and I'm slightly winded by the collision. She kisses my face ten times, and on about the sixth time, I remember Potter somewhere in the periphery.

"We were both cleared," Mother says breathlessly, as if she has been holding it for the duration. Then out steps my father, looking rather casual about it all.

Mother turns to Potter, who's looking awkwardly at his own feet. "Harry Potter, how can we ever repay you?"

She strides over to him and envelops him in a hug that he melts into, for just a second. His chin rests on her head for the briefest moment and his eyes drift closed, before he holds her shoulders and draws her away slowly, until she's at arm's length. It strikes me for the first time – annoying, this habit of being struck by things for the first time – how awful it must be to not have a mother. His dark, weathered look contrasts suddenly with her light, blonde airiness. But I know their eyes have the same tired, half-dead look.

"Mrs. Malfoy, _you_ saved _my_ life, remember?" He says earnestly. "You don't owe me anything."

Mother draws her shoulders back and juts her chin, an almost perfect replica of her old self. "Nonsense."

My father decides to step in at this point, he's probably noticed that Potter's still touching Mother. He gently detaches her and steers her towards me. Strategic.

"Well, anyway," says Potter, giving my father an unpleasant sort of look, "I've got to go back in, sign some things."

When he's gone, Father shoots a glare in his general direction. "He may still betray us. We should leave the country, while we still can."

"Lucius, _no!_" Mother says. "We don't even have wands, and you're talking about fleeing. A fine impression that would make."

It occurs to me that not only do we not have wands; we also don't have Gold to buy wands, or a home. And I'm still absolutely starving. Instead of having to speak, my stomach gives another painful, squelchy rumble. My bodily noises are so unflattering.

Mother snaps back to her spectacularly productive self, even though I still haven't re-adjusted to the real world after being enveloped in horror for so long. She organises with the Ministry of Transport for us to fetch our things from the Manor, which is being held, along with our assets, for scrutiny by Aurors. So we'll be sleeping at the Hog's Head, in Hogsmeade. The cheapest, ugliest, bed-buggiest pub in the country.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter seven**

Fine, the first night at the Hog's Head wasn't so bad. I ate until I almost popped, and slept like a log. The absolute heavy blackness of my sleep was either potion-induced, or my brain's way of cloaking all the nightmares that flit through my waking moments.

Now, a few weeks later, I barely leave my tiny, grubby room, and my parents are starting to grate on my nerves. It's like their definition of what is acceptable Malfoy-behaviour has changed overnight. Mother swans around, establishing contacts with the _wrong_ sort of people – poor, ugly, and once, a House-Elf! – and Father keeps pressing on at me to go back to Hogwarts in September to re-take my final year.

"But _Father,_" I say, trying not to sound like a whiny four year old, "_why_?"

Father claps me on the shoulder. "Son, Hogwarts is the best place for you. You can start working on improving the family name, if you keep to your studies and don't mention the war. It might even take your mind off... everything else."

I start thinking over the next few days that it's possible. I can compartmentalise. The past is the past, and I don't have to keep re-living it.

Except, of course, all I can do is re-live it. Constantly fearing attack, the icy stare of death - or even worse, Dementors - on your back all day every day.

Because of this, I find myself utterly unable to relax. I remember the days of lounging around – the common room, the lounge at the Manor, anywhere – and being able to simply drape myself over furniture and _be_. But these days, all I can do is perch, muscles prepared for a rapid reaction.

Mother notices this, when she comes into my room for the fifth time and makes me jump, for the fifth time.

"Draco, sweetheart," she gives me a worried look, "are you okay? You seem jumpy."

"I'm fine." I say shortly.

She sighs, all too aware that the truth is incommunicable. As she's leaving, she suggests I go to Diagon Alley, saying that a walk would do me good.

With a wand, I'd be happy to leave this dingy room, but the prospect of having to ask for someone else to tap the brick behind the pub and let me into Diagon Alley is unappealing. I'm not five years old anymore.

The thought of venturing into Muggle London flits across my mind at random intervals – and seems outrageously adventurous and terrifying by turns. What if there are dangers out there and I don't have a wand to protect myself? But then again, I can't use magic in front of Muggles anyway, without going straight back to court – I'd probably be sent to Azkaban regardless of whether it was life threatening or not. I'm on thin ice as it is.

It's a huge relief when Shacklebolt finds us to say our funds have been released back to us, and the Manor has been thoroughly inspected and all threats removed. We go home immediately.

"By threats, did he mean _furniture?" _I say in disbelief when I step inside, seeing the Manor barren of all furnishings and decoration. "What do the Ministry find threatening about an end table? Bloody hell."

I see Father close his eyes and count to ten in his head, breathing deeply.

"This is theft, Father." I say, trying to get him to _do_ something. The Malfoys should not tolerate this!

"Draco." Mother says simply, putting a placating hand on my arm. My anger dissipates into the nothingness that surrounds me. It could be much worse than this, I suppose.

I don't get involved in the buying of new furniture. Or the hiring of _staff_. The House Elves have been freed, not by clothes but by _law_. I don't get involved in Mothers outings to London or Fathers meetings with Governors: their whole act is still bothering me. They're even treating me oddly – Mother tilts her head and looks sad for me, and Father avoids my eye when I'm around. I develop a routine of eating, sleeping, and using my en-suite. Occasionally I wander the grounds, which brings me peace until I see random staff like the gardener and the cook. Invading what used to be our private family home. They probably report to the Ministry about us.

I probably haven't seen daylight for a week when Father comes to my room, nose wrinkling.

I stand up as he enters, and ignore his look of distaste at the odour and mess.

"Draco," he says, and sweeps his hand to my desk, _his _desk, inviting me to take a seat. I do, silently. He sits opposite me, and I feel a lecture coming on by the way he's leaning and looking at me.

"Your behaviour has been strange of late." Excessively formal, concise, and leaving no room for argument. This means he's feeling awkward. Mother's asked him to talk to me.

I want to say no, it's YOU who's been strange, I've been normal. But I can't.

"Your mother and I are concerned. We know you've been through a lot, but we can't allow one little setback like this to affect you so deeply. You need to act more like a Malfoy in how you deal with rejection."

"You have no idea what I've been-" I pause, drawing a blank. "Wait, setback? Rejection?"

Now it's Father's turn to look awkward. He takes a deep breath and smoothes his cuffs. "We've been reading the paper, Draco."

"What paper? Why would I be in the-" Through a confused haze, realisation suddenly hits me like a punch to the stomach. Oh_. Fuck._

"It's understandable that you'd do anything necessary in order to keep yourself – well, all of us – out of Azkaban, Draco, and we are…" Father fights to say something nice to me. "We are _proud_ of you for that. And being rejected by Potter must have been difficult, but that's why it's important _not _to get emotionally involved."

Emotionally involved? With Potter? I open my mouth to speak but all I can make is weak croaking noises for a while. "What—what did the papers exactly say?"

"Well, your mother's been giving me the gist of them," says Father, waving his hand in a little circle. "Something about you using your Malfoy charms on Potter to keep us out of Azkaban, an idea I wish I'd thought of myself… Miss Skeeter's a friend of yours, is she not? She may not be the best person to confide your true feelings in, I must say. She apparently wrote all about your heartbreak after your plan backfired when you fell in… ahem, love."

"Father." I say, slowly and clearly, standing up on my side of the desk. "Listen to me. It's all rubbish – Skeeter's nothing more than a half-baked fiction-writer!"

He looks at me dubiously and with a small smile, as if this is the way he _expected_ me to react. "Draco, there's no need to be so secretive about it. Now if it was a fling with a _Mudblood_, then I'd be angry. But as things stand, this little scandal's done wonders for your press reputation. The public sees you as the epitome of Slytherin values – cunning, ambition, and sex appeal."

"Father, please-"

"Our only concern now is getting you out of this depression you've been in." Father cuts me off, and turns all business. "And if you won't consider returning to Hogwarts, you'll have to do something else."

"Like what?"

"Have you considered Auror training?"

My heart almost stops right there.

"Now, don't look at me like that." Father can clearly read my horrified expression. "I wouldn't go so far as suggesting you _become_ an Auror. The acceptance rate after Auror training is roughly two percent, so if fifty people go through training, only one will make it. Do you see what I'm saying?"

"You want me to train to be an Auror and… fail?" I say slowly.

"Precisely. The press is all over your every move, so now would be the perfect time to apply. You will boost the Malfoy reputation away from dark and evil beings, and towards justice and all the rest of that rubbish. If we want the wizarding world to believe we've turned over a new leaf, scandals concerning Harry Potter are only the beginning."

"_Have_ we turned over a new leaf?" I ask, purely for clarification purposes.

"The Malfoys only have one leaf, Draco, and that is the leaf of power." Father gives me a serious look, but to me the whole thing sounds like gibberish to me. I should probably start taking notes.

"So… In order to get back to the status we had before, status that we got by following the Dark Lord… we have to be… _good?_ Or at least fake it?"

I get a hearty slap on the arm for my efforts. "Precisely, Draco. Couldn't have put it better myself. I'll collect your Auror forms in the morning and after dinner, your mother has a suggestion to get you out of the house."

And with that, Father leaves.

"… I don't get it." I say to the mirror by my dressing table.

It harrumphs at me. "Brush your teeth."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** Sorry about the helluva long wait between chapters, and I'd like to thank everyone for their patience and I love the reviews I've gotten so far! As far as Lucius being cleared, it'd be nice to sneak-peek into what happened at his trial, but since this is from Draco's POV, we only know what he knows, which so far is very little :) today we learn about the rest of the world's reaction, something Draco has been avoiding of late. And Draco has spent his whole life being spoiled and mean, whereas his parents find it easier to 'switch sides' because they've done it before, so it's just Draco having trouble with the core concept of going against his personality and sucking up to people.

And about the swearing, I think Draco is the main culprit, because he's not as cool-as-a-cucumber as he tries to make out he is, and he can be quite hot-headed and spiteful in the books too. Harry doesn't swear as much but is known to even in the books (though Rowling refers to it as rude words and hand gestures and I refer to it directly). My main goal is keeping it canon but using my own style, and I'm glad for any reactions and criticism :) this chapter is a short one, but the next one will be longer I swear.

**Chapter Eight**

After dinner that evening, while we're still seated at the table, Mother makes her announcement.

"There's a Charity Ball being held at Howarts. It's to re-build the grounds so it can open for the new term - I only managed to get one invite, so I think you should go, Draco." Her eyes gleam with excitement – and possibly the wine.

"Why _me_?" I say with surprise, not even trying to avoid sounding like a whiny child any more. I even cross my arms and pout. "I don't _care_ about Hogwarts."

"Son." Father reprimands. "Remember what we talked about earlier?"

"Your father and I aren't sympathetic enough." Mother goes on, bluntly. "I've sent people to ask around about the general atmosphere of the Wizarding world, and everyone thinks _we_ should be in Azkaban. It won't look good if we go swanning off to parties with the elite of society so soon. No one really sees you as a threat because of the Harry Potter business, so you can go and be charming for us."

I frown, rankled. "I can be threatening if I want to be. And there's no _Harry Potter_ business, it was all-"

Mother cuts me off with a serious look. "This isn't the time to be a petulant child, Draco. Right now we're not trying to prove who's got the bigger wand. We're just trying to survive. I really don't want to have to up sticks and move to Bulgaria just to have a bad reputation in both countries."

That's what Greg's family did. It strikes me for the first time how much I miss having Greg and Vince around. The big idiots.

"I don't think Bulgaria sounds like a bad idea." I say, uncrossing my arms.

"You're going to this event." Mother says shortly, and stands up from the table. "You'll be fitted for new Dress Robes tomorrow, and you'll be _nice_. Besides, _Harry_ will be there, so you can really milk the press."

She strides out of the dining room, heels ticking. I look to my father in despair, but he just shakes his head warningly, as if to remind me that arguing with Mother in these matters is never wise.

Later that night, while I'm in my room, I almost start getting excited about the prospect of going out, being a Malfoy again—but no. Apparently _now,_ being a Malfoy means being _nice. _If I go to this stupid dinner and pretend to be nice then people will see right through me. They'll _know_ it's an act, and they'll be unbearably hostile, or worse. And I won't be able to say anything back. I flump down onto my bed in frustration, causing it to let out a cloud of dust since I won't let the human cleaner in here, and hope there's at least free drinks at this thing.

Early the next morning, Mother took me to be fitted for Dress Robes by Madam Malkin. She gave us dirty looks when we arrived but wasn't going to turn down business. I'm sure she was deliberately pinning me in places, too. Afterwards, while we wait the longer-than-usual four hours to pick up my completed robes, we sit rather impatiently at the Leaky Cauldron bar. Mother is coaching me on my behaviour tonight, and I'm sulking.

"Eat what's on your plate, even if you don't like it. And eat _only_ that, don't go picking around, it seems greedy. Drink one glass of wine with your meal, no more. Always compliment the host – that'll be Headmistress McGonagall - on their wine choice, even if it's absolute piss."

My face contorts into a smile involuntarily, but I hide it by turning my head. I never realised Mother's social graces were so... calculated.

"And," she continues, "when it comes to dancing, choose an ugly partner, preferably a Hufflepuff if you can find one, so people think you've really turned over a new leaf."

I can no longer refrain from remarking with a grin, "Mother, you're absolutely terrible."

She purses her lips and her eyes gleam with pride.

"Do you think people will be watching everything I do?" I ask, suddenly anxious.

"I expect so. So be polite, but don't grovel. Be nice without being oily. Don't be _too_ witty. Laugh at their jokes. And don't show anyone your arm."

Shit, how am I going to remember all of this?

My anxiety only increases as the afternoon fades to evening, and I begin getting ready for tonight. I feel utterly strange to be pulling on fancy – if suitably muted - robes and planning to act normal. Worse than normal, _nice._

Mother's fussing isn't helping with my butterflies. She's made sure every single hair on my head is in place, that my robes are straight, shoes buckled, and she even approaches me to curl my eyelashes before I grip her wrist in horror.

"Mother." I say, resolutely. "You have a son, not a daughter."

"Oh, Draco." She replies, looking at me intensely. "You have to understand how important this is."

I furrow my brows. "It's just to rebuild Hog-"

"It's to rebuild _us_." She says firmly, dragging her wrist out of my grip. I feel a punch of understanding. They're pinning their hopes - _for what?_ - on me. I might not know exactly what sort of status they want– they have their Manor, their riches back - but I can't let them down in this, can't let them down like I always have done before.

A new sort of determination fills me - the sort that's warm and heavy in my gut. Determination fuelled by love, not cold terror.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

When I arrive at Hogsmeade the sky is already darkening, and the wind is fussing my hair. The bog-standard carriages are waiting to take the gathering crowd to the castle. I note without interest that I can now see the creatures that are pulling them, but the Care of Magical Creatures lesson feels like such a distant memory that I can't remember what they're called. Around me I see people of all ages: old patrons of the school; retired teachers; young hopefuls; even people my age. I don't get any overtly hostile looks, but people jostle away from me and I end up in a carriage by myself.

In the entrance hall of Hogwarts, McGonagall emerges from a side door, still limping and leaning heavily on a cane. Her eyes, sharp as ever, flick over the faces in the room before she speaks.

"I'd like to offer great thanks to everyone here tonight. The response to our call for help has been truly astounding. We will be providing a feast made by _volunteer_ Elves for the occasion, and the hour glasses at the end of the hall will be accepting your donations - however little or large."

When I walk into the Great Hall, it's crumbling and cavernous with floating candles highlighting the damage, and I stop in my tracks. Someone bumps into the back of me, and mumbles in annoyance at having to walk around. I barely hear them - my heart and head have simultaneously started thudding. A deep well of hurt comes rushing up from my stomach and I have to spin around and stumble back to the Entrance Hall, feeling a rush of panic, guilt, fear, and all the other horrible memories of being in this place. The magical flashes and bangs from the photographers definitely don't help, and I feel like time has slowed down, or even reversed, back to just a few weeks ago, when all our lives were in peril.

I try to calm my breathing, and wonder if I can slip away without being noticed. McGonagall probably didn't even see me. And certainly no one will miss me if I leave. I start heading back towards the double-doors, hoping one of those carriages can be persuaded to return me to Hogsmeade. I struggle past the crowd in the Entrance Hall once more and start breathing a little easier once I get outside. I go down the steps that lead up to the castle and onto the grass away from the bustling crowd.

"Malfoy?" Says a voice behind me, causing me to jump spectacularly.

"Bloody hell, Potter." I pant, clutching my chest while he smirks.

"Sorry," he says, not looking like he means it. "But you deserve that after everything you've put me through."

"What are you talking about?" I draw a blank. "I haven't even—"

I stop myself before admitting I've been inside for going on six weeks, and finish lamely. "—done anything."

"Oh, so you've forgotten all about your chat with Skeeter? You've forgotten about being in the papers every single _day_ since, with the stories getting worse and worse?"

"I thought we agreed that wasn't my fault." I draw myself up to my full height, which I note with pleasure is a tiny bit taller than Potter.

"_You_ agreed." He eyes me up and down. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"If you hadn't quite noticed, there's a Charity Ball happening right over there, and I was invited." I say as scathingly as possible.

"I _had_ quite noticed, thanks, but something tells me you're just here to cause trouble. You weren't even going inside, it looked as if you were leaving."

"Just getting some air." I lie defensively. "If that's a crime, then the whole inside of your cavernous head would be in trouble."

Potter bites his bottom lip, either to stop himself laughing or hitting me, I can't tell. Perhaps both. In either case, I feel I should move away as soon as possible, and the only direction to go is back towards the castle. "Right, now if you don't mind, this huge bag of Galleons isn't going to donate itself." I say blithely, and turn away.

I clutch onto the small, familiar feeling of victory against Potter, and it actually helps me when I'm back in the Great Hall. I strut in as though I'm a fourth-year again, back when I thought I owned the school. I even manage to make a show of donating my Galleons, making sure to put them into what used to be the Slytherins' hourglass. I get a few gasps and small round of applause when my magically-shrunken sack of Galleons grows to its full size, and it takes two of us to lift it to pour it into the top. The Gold showers down and fills the glass higher than all the other Houses, despite starting out empty. I even see the occasional flash and cloud of smoke, so I hope tomorrow's newspaper will please Mother.

Instead of the four House tables that are usually lining the Hall, there's one large table at one side of the hall, and a dancefloor on the other side. Presumably for the sake of unity. I go to sit down in my seat – labelled with my name – and it's only when I sit down and my wine goblet fills itself that the muttering starts.

"… _paid his way in here…"_

"… _heard he weaselled his way out of Azkaban…"_

"… _knew Potter's weakness in trusting people…"_

I try to ignore it as best as I can, though the bubble of confidence I had a moment ago has burst. Right. I'll focus on my food. The table is full of meat pies and piles of roast potatoes and gravy boats; carved meats and vegetables and Yorkshire puddings. I try to remember what Mother was telling me about how much I should eat, but before I've remembered that she said only one plate and "no picking around", I'm already on my third helping. I even stuff myself with pudding: cheesecake, apple tart and ice cream.

"… _can't believe the nerve of some people…"_

After my third goblet of wine, I'm feeling decidedly more confident. So what if people think I did the nasty with Potter? Father doesn't care, Potter doesn't seem to care – sure, he might have shouted at me but I didn't detect much hostility or aggression in it. And if people think I only did it to redeem my family, who cares?

But then, if it _was_ true, and I _did_ stoop so low, it would have worked at first, I realise, but then Potter would have rejected me... and why would he have done that? As I sip my fourth goblet, I begin to wish I'd read all those stupid articles. I'd like to see what Skeeter came up with as a good enough reason for _Potter_ to dump _me._ I'm a catch! Good looks, charm, wealth, great dancer...

When the music starts, I jump up happily and cross the Hall for the dance floor. The crushing feeling I had in crowds a couple of hours ago has gone, and I find the room quite pleasant and warm. Oh, and what did Mother say about dancing? Was it to not dance? No… that can't be it… I have great rhythm, why not show it off? Then I remember something about Hufflepuffs, so I head to their corner of the Hall. They might all like to pretend to have done away with House divisions, but you can spot a Hufflepuff a mile off. Something in their posture, I think. I strut confidently past them, ignoring some puzzled glances, and remember to look for the homeliest looking one. After spotting her, a short, chubby thing with what looks like either bad acne or a mild case of the bubonic plague, I sleek my hair back and offer her my hand with a short bow.

"Care to dance?" I say with all the charm I can muster. Eyes wide, and with a sort of squeaky noise, she takes my hand and I pull her onto the dancefloor. One hand on her love handles, and the other clasping her own hand, I wheel her around in circles, hoping everyone else around me is getting a good view of how much of a leaf I've turned over.

"So what's your name?" I shout to her, over the din of music.

"Pat." She shouts back, almost hesitantly.

"I'm Draco." I inform her.

"I know!" She replies, and I can't help grinning with satisfaction. This whole 'social graces' thing might not be so bad after all. I knew I had it in me.

When the music changes to a slower tune, Pat seems to snuggle into me and… squeeze me, in places. I realise she's let go of my hand and cupped my rear end, and I jump back in semi-horror.

"Uh… bathroom." I squeak, and rush off.

In the bathroom I splash some cold water on my face, which reduces my buzz a little bit, and helps me think clearer. Which just enhances the mental image of Pat's pustule-ridden face touching my robes.

_Oh for Merlin's sake, Draco_, I tell myself. _You're supposed to be out there winning popularity back for all Malfoys, and instead you're hiding in a bathroom like a little girl!_

I take a deep breath and stride back into the Hall, and Pat rushes up to me as I enter. "Draco," she says, in that voice of hers that's slightly weird. "This is my favourite song, want another dance?"

"Of-of course, darling." I say, trying to sound smooth but also speaking loudly enough that people milling around the drinks table can hear me. Why are they tittering?

I don't have time to wonder, because Pat's surprising strength has pulled me onto the dancefloor for a fast, hip-shaking number. I suppose I can see why she likes this song, I think as I whirl around to the music. One doesn't need to be drinking to enjoy this kind of music, unlike the slow songs…

As if on cue, the music slows down, and Pat's vice grip pulls me towards her again. She squeezes herself against me and we rotate awkwardly, with me trying not to inhale.

When I'm tapped on the shoulder, I almost sigh with relief, until I turn and see Potter again.

"May I cut in?" He asks, and I get a vision of tomorrow's paper with the headline that we're both vying for the love of the same ugly Hufflepuff. Let him have her, it seems my work here is done.

"Go ahead." I gesture to her.

"I meant with you." Potter says, and I suppose he's had too much wine too, because he grabs me and Pat slinks away, sulking.

"Wh-what the hell are you doing, Potter?" I say in horror after I've had time to gather my wits about me.

"I _would_ be dancing if you got off my feet, Malfoy." He says, not catching my eye but looking all around us.

"This isn't helping us _not look gay_, you know." I point out, trying to keep in step. I'm not going to be the one that backs out of this first. The flashes and puffs of smoke from the paparazzi start going crazy for a moment, then die down again.

"Right, like groping all over Patrick was helping your case."

Pat—Patrick? "Patrick? _Patrick?_ But she had boobs!"

Potter lets out a laugh, which he quickly stifles. "I'm sorry, Malfoy. That's hilarious, did you really think he was a girl?"

"She could have been anything under all that acne." I say dryly, making Potter laugh even more. "I need a drink."

"Me too. You're a terrible dancer." He says, nodding his head towards the drinks table.

We both make our way over, and I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to be walking _with_ Potter, or if we just happen to be going the same way. I start to lose him in the crowd, not quite by accident, and it's only when I see his head tip-toeing above the crowd to find me that I suppose he actually wanted to go with me to have drinks. Fine. I pick up a wine goblet and Potter grabs a firewhiskey and points it towards the exit.

Once we're outside again, Potter leans against the wall of the castle and raises a silent toast before throwing back his drink in one shot. I sip mine, and give him a look. His outline is getting slightly fuzzy. "What are we out here for?"

"I thought I was rescuing you from Patrick." He replied. "The _Prophet_ got some nice shots of you both, though."

"At least that'll take the attention off you for a while. You should be glad." I say. "And I didn't _need_ rescuing_._"

Potter shrugs, apparently at a loss as to where to put his empty glass, so he settles for waving it around as he speaks. "So you say, but you always manage to find yourself in situations like that."

I almost choke on my wine, and have to take another gulp just to clear my throat. "Let's not compare a lifetime in Azkaban with being fondled by _Patrick._ One of them is infinitely more horrible."

Potter laughs again, then cocks his head at me. "When did your evil bastard schtick become funny?"

I put a hand to my chest, mock-offended. "It always was."

"Right, I suppose I just forgot to find it funny when you were joking about Voldemort."

I hear the tinkling of glass and it takes me a second to realise I dropped my glass as I flinched.

"Huh." I look down with vague interest.

"Sorry about that." Potter shrugs. "I always forget."

"You owe me more wine." I say. "And I'm going back inside. I have a job to do."

Back inside, the dancefloor has cleared slightly, and thankfully there's no Pat in sight. We pick up another set of drinks, and I nudge Potter in the arm. "Point out which one of these people is female – I need to at _least_ be seen as bisexual in the _Prophet._"

"Oh my, Malfoy, I had no idea your social graces were so premeditated."

"Thank my mother. She wanted to curl my eyelashes for this."

Potter looks at me, again, with mild alarm, then nods his head to the side. "Try her, over there. With the ringlets."

He pushes me in the direction of what I hope is a girl standing by the wall, and I face her and put out my hand with another small bow. "Care to dance?"

She gives me an apprehensive look, but slaps her hand on mine. "Oh, alright then. No straight men are asking."

I wait until we're on the dancefloor before I point out that I _am_ straight.

"You could have fooled me with that show you put on with that young fellow. And I've read all about you and Harry Potter in the papers."

"Harry and I have an arrangement." I say, becoming quite attached to the lie. It's like namedropping. "And it's dark, and Pat has _boobs._"

The girl laughs, and it's horribly raucous. "I'm Verity."

The first name doesn't ring a bell, and something tells me it wouldn't go down well if I asked her surname. "I'm Draco."

"So Draco, how's it feel to kiss Harry Potter? Everyone in the wizarding world is _dying_ to know."

"I taught him everything he knows." I say distractedly as I search him out in the crowd. He's in the corner, throwing back more firewhiskey. I vaguely wonder where Weasley and Granger are, before I'm engaged in conversation and forget all about them.

"And why would he have dumped me anyway? I mean, if the whole thing _was_ true, which it isn't. But IF I was a master manipulator with all that sex appeal and charm, not that I'm _not_, because I am, then what possible reason could there be? Am I right?" A few drinks later, I feel I've reached the peak of my eloquence, though Verity seems perpetually confused by me. Maybe she's not drunk enough.

Before I know it, it's nearing midnight, and my stomach hurts. I overstuffed myself with food, then poured almost a gallon of drinks into it, and it's starting to protest. Though I don't have to wait long before this Verity girl is snogging my face off – I never realised how potent a combination of being drop-dead gorgeous _and_ gay would be to a woman's libido. I get into the snogging with gusto, and despite it being only my second or third attempt I reckon I'm getting rather good at it. _This_ will give the Daily Prophet something to prophesise about.

Then, suddenly, I feel a watering of my mouth that has nothing to do with snogging. I step back just in time to lurch forwards and heave all over Verity's shoes with a sickening splatter.

"Oh for Merlin's sake!" Verity says crossly, as I wipe my mouth with my sleeve. She storms off, squelching with each step, mumbling something about 'just her luck' and 'never going to be anyone's beard again'.

I use the shoulders of a nearby paparazzo to steady myself, not caring at this point about the flashes of his camera and his incessant questions. I feel a rushing darkness enclosing on my vision, and I can even hear it in my ears. Perhaps I should lie down.


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER TEN**

A few seconds, minutes, or hours later, I wrench open my eyes to the sight of another pair of bright green ones. They're looking worriedly at me. Of course.

"Potter." I try to mumble scathingly, but it comes out like a weak, hoarse 'puhhhtuuh'.

"You're such an idiot, Malfoy." Potter says, his tone filled with disgust but his face looks somewhat worried. I turn my head and realise we're in the hospital wing. How did I get here?

"What happened? Was I poisoned?" I croak, trying to sit up. I bet someone wanted to take me out and stop me from repairing the family name because they think we should all be in Azkaban.

"No Malfoy, you drank yourself silly, shouted about how much of a catch you are and I never should have dumped you, vomited all over yourself and Verity Jones and then passed out cold. I had to drag you here just to get you away from the press."

Oh.

"Oh." I say. "Well, granted, I may have gone overboard on the drinks, but I thought the evening went rather well." I successfully snogged a woman, and I'm all over the papers as not doing anything evil for one whole evening. It probably couldn't have gone better.

Potter has the nerve to roll his eyes. "If you say so. Now, I'm going home, you've wasted enough of my time."

I blink a few times, confused and a bit stung. I take a deep breath but my anger flares. "I didn't _need_ your help, Potter. Why are you even here, sat by my bloody bedside like I'm some damsel in distress, if it's such a waste of your time?"

Potter, who had started to turn away, stops still and frowns. "I don't-"

But I'm not done. "You don't _know?_ Well stop blaming me for your crippling hero complex and go fuck up somebody else's evening, if you've got better things to do."

"Right." Harry says, still half turned around, his face in profile. "You're right. I'm the idiot, and I'm going."

He gets up and walks off, leaving behind a horrible silence after my yelling. And now my head hurts, so I swing my legs out of the bed and stand up feebly. No one is around, no one seemed to have heard my shouting, so I might as well use this opportunity to go home and get into a real bed.

Outside, the wind is a lot colder and the darkness is blacker than earlier. It manages to ease my headache a little and clear the rest of the buzz from my brain. The coaches lined up to take us back to the train station are well lit, and I clamber inside one and try to think about anything but how annoying Potter is. _Waste of his time._ The idiot doesn't even realise how big-headed he is, because he's so wrapped up in being the bloody Golden Boy Chosen One Who Lived that he thinks the authority on fixing problems. Well, I don't have any problems that involve him, so he should keep his giant head out of my business. He probably thinks I'm about to switch back to being a Death Eater any second, so he feels like he has to keep personal tabs on me. Or maybe his life is boring now that the Dark Lord is gone, so he has to find ways to bring excitement back to his day, since he obviously doesn't derive much from Granger and Weasley anymore. Hah, I should have said that to his stupid face in the hospital wing. That would have shown him.

I'm smirking to myself as the carriage pulls up to the station, and I hurriedly cross the platform and go inside the main building, which has an open Floo port, guarded by the two giant Aurors that frisked me and took my wand when I first got here. They give me my wand back, which I snatch disdainfully, and I grab a pinch of powder and toss it into the grate, calling out "Malfoy Manor" as I step into the flames.

Mum and Dad are waiting in the drawing room as I arrive, and look expectantly at me as I step out of the fire. "How did it go?" Mother says, after casting the spell to close the grate.

"I think it went rather well, actually." I say, my confidence in this statement rather diminished now that I've thought about it and remembered the majority of the evening. "There was a huge scene when I donated the gold. I put it right in the Slytherin hourglass."

Mother smiles, so I can't help boasting. "And I danced with a Hufflepuff, so that'll probably be in the papers too."

"Was Potter there?" My father asks, half-casually, half-stiffly. "You look rather… dishevelled."

I glance into the mirror above the fireplace and he's not wrong. My shirt collar is all opened, and my lips look dark and puffy. And my _hair._

"Well yes he was, but I was too busy with Verity Jones to bother with him." I have pretty much given up trying to explain to my parents that nothing has actually happened between Potter and me.

Mother's eyes gleam. "Ooh, good choice, darling."

Father gives her a look. "Good choice? Wasn't she a Mudblood?"

"Dear, we're calling it 'Muggle-born' now, and if I remember, her grandparents were Cornfoots, so she's at least half-blood."

My sluggish brain is trying to process this information in a way I understand. "So it's a good thing I snogged her?" I leave out the information about puking on her shoes afterwards.

"Yes, darling," Mother says, looking proud. "It shows we don't care about blood distinction anymore."

"Well, it was a crazy night, so who knows how the _Prophet _will spin it." I say quickly, and don't even have to fake a yawn to be excused, because I'm so tired I can't help letting one out.

The next morning I make my way to the breakfast table and Mother is there, fully dressed and looking immaculate, but with a pout. She stands up when she sees me.

"Oh, Draco, you were right. The _Prophet_ have just focussed Potter again! The part about our large donation wasn't even in there! We practically rebuilt Hogwarts for them, and all they can write about is you rekindling with Harry!"

Rekindling? "Let me see that," I say, trying not to seem eager when I snatch the paper from Mother, and look at the front-page spread. It is _filled_ with pictures of Potter and me. In one photo, we're dancing, and his head is tipped back with laughter. Then there's one with his arms around me, supporting my weight while I was presumably passed out. The third has us making eye-contact over the crowd, with our heads circled in red and a dotted line showing the reader how we're 'searching one another out'. The very centre one shows me yelling something at him, face scrunched up, and him looking baffled. I don't remember that part at all. The headline is 'POTTER AND MALFOY MAKE MORE SPARKS AT HOGWARTS'.

"Oh, crap." I sigh, skimming the horrid, drippy article. But Mother comes over to me and envelopes me in a hug.

"Don't worry, darling. It's not _so_ bad, really. I don't mind that you lied. If everyone knows you're back with Harry, it shows you _must_ have turned over a new leaf. And last night you came back happier and more animated than I've seen you for a while, so I did suspect…"

"Mother, look, I _didn't_ lie, the _Prophet_ has it all wrong-"

"Shh, sweetheart. It's okay, I know the _Prophet_ exaggerates. Look, I bet you didn't – let's see what it says here," Mother grabs the article and picks a bit to read. "Ah, I bet you didn't 'embrace tightly and lay your head against Harry's strong, broad shoulder for the duration of three love songs'. I know you well enough to _know_ you'd never act like that in public. And his shoulders aren't that broad. Yours are at _least _as broad as his. Maybe just a little smaller…"

As Mother goes on about shoulders, I sigh and flop myself in my seat in front of breakfast. There's no getting through some people. We get through breakfast a little more normally, but before I can return to my bedroom and lock myself in for the day, as has become my ritual, Father beckons me into his study and I follow him. He sits down behind his desk, which is littered with parchment, and picks up a quill.

"Son, what would you say is your most heroic trait?"

What? Completely baffled, I just stare at Father, as he's hunched over a bit of a paper and prepares to write.

"Well?" He says, looking expectantly up at me above his reading glasses.

"Er, well, I'm, erm… Determined… and I know how to duel I suppose… What exactly is this for?"

"Your Auror application form. It's left a space for a specific example of bravery here, but I can't think of a good enough lie."

"What about the time I…" I wrack my brain. I _must_ have done something heroic before, even by accident. "Well I _am _brave. Maybe not a hero, but I'm brave."

"Yes but we need proof, we're not applying for an airy-fairy lets-talk-waffle role here, this is serious." Father says, waving his hands around as though to mimic fluttering.

"I did save Potter's life that one time." I say, the beginnings of recollection coming back to me.

"You did?"

"Yes, it was right over there," I point out to the hallway. "He came in with his face all bloated, and I knew it was him, and everyone wanted me to say it was him so they could kill him or something. But I lied and said I wasn't sure. I thought _I'd_ be killed on the spot for lying, but I was lucky I suppose." I feel like the story is awfully lame, compared to _real_ acts of heroism. But it's the best I've got.

"That's perfect!" Father says, and begins hurriedly scratching the parchment.

"What? What are you putting?"

"… Risked own life… withheld information regarding the location and identification of Harry Potter in the face of Death Eaters… saved his life…"

Oh Merlin. He's really putting it. I sit down on the other side of the table and tell him at least to flesh out the story so it sounds more like I stood up to Death Eater interrogation or something. We start getting quite into the whole application process, and when I proof-read the parchment at the end, I'm actually quite proud of myself. Maybe I shouldn't have put that 'organic Unicorn rearing' was my favourite hobby, but honestly, I'm sure it's fine.

We decide that we'll go straight to the Ministry to drop it off personally, to really make an impression. I run upstairs to get dressed and put on a rather fetching set of robes and some great boots that I can really strut around in. After fussing with my hair for a little bit, I consider myself looking spectacular. I head back downstairs, and find Father wearing a suit without his robe and looking at me as though someone just pulled out one of his teeth.

"We are leaving our robes at home, Son. We look more Muggle without them, which is absolutely dreadful, but must be done in this climate."

I look out the window. "The climate? But it's raining."

"No, Draco." Father says snappishly. "The _political_ climate. If we show up in Muggle gear, it'll look like we're re-aligning ourselves with the current paradigm."

_What on Earth is he on about?_ "Um, alright then." I say, and shrug off my robes. My shirt, trousers and waistcoat are very fine, but I still feel somewhat underdressed.

"We don't have to _travel_ the Muggle way, do we?" I say, looking outside to the sheets of rain that are starting to positively thud against the window.

"Absolutely not. We just have to make it _look _like we've travelled the Muggle way. We'll Floo to a place nearby and use the visitor's entrance."

I nod and tuck the rolled parchment into my waistcoat, but don't feel great about this whole situation.


	11. Chapter 11

Father and I end up realizing the nearest place to Floo to the Ministry, aside from the Ministry itself, is miles away, but after a dodgy twenty minutes on some kind of underground railway system for Muggles that I never knew London had, we're finally outside the Ministry building, sopping wet. Stepping into the red box and being taken down to the atrium is almost a surreal experience, and my thoughts are spinning. _Is this real life now? Are things back to normal? Is this what normal is?_

I step out into the hustling atrium with Father and we're momentarily jostled around as we spot the new statue at the fountain. It's a trite-looking thing, a generic scruffy-haired looking wizard and a plain-looking witch holding hands with a House Elf (just called Elves now, apparently), a Goblin and a Centaur. Etched into the short tiled surrounding the fountain are giants, mermaids, hags, Muggles, vampires, half-werewolf-things, all holding hands too. It even has a plaque which reads, _This statue is dedicated to Harry Potter, for the brave deeds that destroyed our old one._

Father and I just exchange a look, he rolls his eyes, and we pass it without comment. Security seems to be ramped up around here too, and me and Father are asked to give up our wands before we can go the Auror Headquarters. Walking the halls is even more surreal. The House Elves are wearing suits and ties, and robes, and dresses, and all manner of garments. It looks like they've been given regular jobs, since they're carrying parchment and quills and not seeming to do any cleaning at all.

When we reach level two, we step into the Auror office, which seems to be the busiest part of the whole Ministry right now. People are filling the cubicles, yelling across the room at each other, coming and going rapidly, and there are memos flying around all over the place. I envision them all bursting into laughter when I mention my application, so I'm tempted to just turn around and leave. But a prod from Father makes me step into the room.

"Um, good morning." I say, to the person in the nearest cubicle who seems to be one of the underlings who is acting as a go-between. She looks up at me, appearing hassled, and continues to unfold memos.

"Yes?" She says.

"I'd like to drop off my Auror application. I've left my details on it for correspondence, if you need-"

"We won't need to send you an owl," she snaps hurriedly and my stomach starts to sink. "When can you start?"

My insides do some more funny turns, and I stammer, "s-start? When?"

After another impatient look, I blurt out, "tomorrow!"

"Eight on the dot. Don't be late." She says, and I take it I'm dismissed. I turn around in sort of a daze and step out of the office, where Father is waiting.

Father looks confused at my odd expression. "You did drop off your application didn't you, Son?"

"I start tomorrow." I say, dry-mouthed all of a sudden, and it sinks in that I'm actually doing this, and that they must be _idiots_ to let me.

"Standards must have gone to the dogs." Father says, not necessarily unkindly, but it still stings a little.

"Well, I still probably won't get through training." I say, trying to look on the bright side. "They must be taking on anyone right now and letting the program weed them out."

"Right." Says Father, and appears to minutely relax. "I think we need a drink, don't you?"

After a quick Butterbeer – though I don't know what Father added to them – we arrive back home in a decidedly better mood.

Mother greets us at the fireplace and we tell her about what happened at the Ministry.

"Oh, wonderful!" She says. "Obviously they know you're trusted by all the right people, so they're eager to have you on board."

"Oh sure, definitely." I say airily. Then it strikes me. "Wait, so you think I only got accepted because of all that business with Potter?"

Mother has the grace to look ashamed for a second, and then goes back to business. "Darling, don't call him _Potter_, you two aren't schoolboy rivals anymore! When is he coming over for supper, anyway?"

I inwardly groan. There's no way in Merlin's frock would I ever invite that prat here, so I come up with a quick lie. "Well, he's terribly busy now, you know, dealing with everything. So I probably won't even see him for months."

"Oh, sweetheart, don't say that! After last night, he can't be too busy to talk to you!" Mother looks crestfallen, and comes over to give me a hug. Then a light seems to switch on behind her eyes, and she pulls me away.

"I know _just_ what I'll do." She says, and then she's off.

Father and I exchange another look, he gives a small shrug, and we go our separate ways for the rest of the day. I manage to resist the temptation to hole myself back up in my room, and head towards the library to read some defensive magic spellbooks so I won't look like a complete idiot tomorrow. I mean, we _must_ have some, right?

After half an hour of fruitless searching through what now looks to be Mother's entire magical romance library since most of our property has been seized, I end up settling for a book on dueling. Dueling involves attacking _and_ defending, right? And there are even chapters on what to do if you have to duel a beast, like a centaur or Animagus, or Boggart. I'm sure this will be helpful.

I settle down at the desk to read, and become so absorbed that it seems like after no time at all, the light outside has almost gone and I find my nose almost up against the pages. Turning on the desk lamp, I go through the last few pages – how to duel from _under water_ – and close the book. I can't wait to use some of these spells. I never thought there'd be more to dueling than throwing the meanest curse you can think of at someone and trying to make sure you don't get hit yourself.

"You see, while the _Expelliarmus_ technique has often proven useful and works as a first resort, one must already have backup charms in mind in case of failure or even wand loss." I say to Mother at dinner, and she nods.

"Very good, Draco. You're going to amaze everybody tomorrow. Don't forget your manners, either. And I've laid out some conservative black dress robes that you can't go wrong with, since I don't know the dress code."

I'm starting to get excited at the prospect of tomorrow, at least in between the times that I'm gripped by a nervous terror so strong that I can barely move a muscle, anyway. That evening, I alternate between sitting on my bed, awash with fear, and hopping around to practice a couple of spell-casting techniques. A dart-and-jab here, a swish-and-flick there, a quick flourish, and I start feeling pretty good about myself again.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Sorry about the long delay between chapters. I have had a LOT going on in my life lately! When I started this story I had all day to sit around and write - those were the days. I've written a few chapters ahead but I will need to edit them and make sure they're consistent before I publish them. Happy reading!

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

The next morning is a blur of Mother waking us all up ridiculously early, Father looking rather sulky at the breakfast table, and me not being able to speak because of nerves.

At seven fifty-eight I find myself back on Level Two at the Ministry and am just about to go into the Auror Headquarters when the door starts swinging towards me instead and a scruffy ginger blur comes out, then stops in astonishment.

"_Malfoy_? What the bloody hell are you doing here? Have you been arrested?"

It's Weasley. He's balancing a steaming coffee, two croissants and a large pile of rolled parchments. I feel a surge of hatred just from his stupid speckled face, but I try to quell it.

"I'm here for Auror training, actually." I say, putting my chest out slightly. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Well, blimey." Weasley looks somewhat stumped. "My training started two months ago but I just got off my honeymoon so I'm a bit - wait a minute… You're-"

His belated shock seems to cause his armful of things to want to tumble, so I step forward automatically and grab his coffee, which was tipping dangerously to one side.

"Yes, training to be an Auror." I clarify. "Now if you don't mind, I'm late."

I sidestep him swiftly to avoid what looks like his building anger, and push through the still-swinging door to the office Headquarters, taking a sip of coffee that tastes even more delicious since I got it through sleight of hand. Plus, Weasley must be a four-sugars sort of guy as well.

"Malfoy." Barks a man with a clipboard, and my mind snaps back to business. "Here's a couple of things you'll need to know about your work, duties, and training schedule."

He hands me a roll of parchment so thick that it must be at least twelve feet long. "We're over capacity at the moment so we aren't doing an orientation, and we've waived the entrance requirements for now since most applicants didn't get to do their N.E. , but they're still eager and I think everyone's ready to prove themselves – or not, as the case may be."

After giving me a look suggesting that _I'm_ one of the people who won't be able to prove myself, he turns and walks away, and I'm left in the middle of the office without an idea where to go next. I gingerly sit down at the nearest unoccupied desk and unfurl my parchment to start reading.

**_Auror Training Guidelines_**

_Training will consist of on-the-job duties from 8.30am – 6pm supplemented with evening classes three times a week for two hours a session. Job duties consist of the following, at a minimum:_

_Assisting the Auror Department in any capacity asked of you, including any tasks within your scope and abilities regardless of experience if under supervision by a qualified individual._

_Maintaining and updating the department's records as necessary for accuracy and within the law's guidelines._

_Aiding in communication of sensitive information between departments and maintaining its confidentiality._

_General duties for other departments as and when given leave to do so by the Auror department._

_On-the-job training is designed to give you real experience of what working in any Auror department in the country is like and provides the qualified Aurors with some relief when it comes to paperwork, general chores, and dealing with the rest of the Ministry. Doing YOUR job allows them to do THEIR job and rid this country of the Dark Criminals that are still threatening the safety of our families and values._

_Evening classes are designed to safely replicate experiences of an Auror on a day-to-day basis and the first hour is dedicated to the necessary technique – i.e Stealth and Tracking – and the second hour is dedicated to putting this into practice either in groups, individually, or in pairs. Every technique must be mastered fully before the class ends or a failing mark will be given, and you will be dropped from the training program._

_Rules governing behaviour are stricter in this department than any other in the Ministry. Integrity is paramount to our operations, so all behaviour inside and outside of this building must be professional, courteous, and law-abiding._

_Your training schedule will be based on a 46-hour week with a 15 minute break in the morning, an hour lunch, and a 15 minute break in the afternoon. Days off will be on a rotating basis depending upon the needs of the department and the rest of the staff. Requests for time off are restricted to one request per month and must be coupled with-_

My head is spinning and I've only read six inches of parchment. There's even more rules, restrictions, guidelines and whatnot further down, and every class is listed and explained in detail, so I'll have to give this thing a thorough reading, if I want to-

"Malfoy?" I jump out of my seat as my reverie is broken, and I almost spill my coffee. It's Potter, and he's not looking happy to see me.

"Ron told me he saw you, but I thought he was hallucinating from sleep deprivation. What are you _actually_ doing here?"

I'm starting to get impatient with the fact that no one seems to believe in me. "I started my Auror training. Or I'm supposed to start. Look, here's my guidelines."

Potter snatches them off me and inspects them as though for authenticity. "But Malfoy, _why?_ What are you trying to prove?"

"Nothing!" I lie, and snatch the parchment back. "I haven't _got_ anything to prove. You don't have to be a Golden Boy to be an Auror, you know, some of us can do it based on our own merit."

Potter's eyes narrow and I see his annoyance, but he manages to stifle it. "Well, Ron doesn't trust you, and he thinks you made Skeeter write all those things for your own benefit to get out of Azkaban, so if I were you I'd try to keep away from him."

"I'll cancel the romantic date I was planning then, shall I?" I quip sarcastically, and Potter has the audacity to crack a smile and shake his head in a patronising way. But then he's all business again.

"Look, it does seem fishy, you being here. We had a backlog of ninety applicants when the rules were waived, but you're the first ex-Death Eater to apply, cleared by the courts or not. So if you're serious, we can get started, but if you don't show _more_ than a hundred percent effort then you'll be out of here in two weeks."

"Well if you keep waffling on I'll never get a _chance_ to prove myself, so how about we get on with it?" I gulp the rest of the coffee and follow Potter as he rolls his eyes and leads me away.

Potter leads us to a window-less room off a corridor past the Headquarters, and explains this is the training room. It's a large space, very poorly decorated, but the walls are at least lined with things we might need, like targets, mats, protective gear, and boxes of magical implements.

There's about a hundred people milling around in there, including Weasley who is glaring suspiciously at me from the front, standing with a couple of Ravenclaws I don't recognize and a tall, broad, sandy-haired boy I believe was in our year but in Gryffindor. Sean something, maybe?

"Right we've taken attendance, now we're just waiting for…" Potter checks his unorganised stack of parchments.

Weasley unfurls one of his parchment bundles and reads. "Vanessa."

I wish everyone would stop with this first-name-only nonsense. How am I supposed to know who anybody _is?_

After a few minutes, a rather fetching-looking girl arrives, looking flushed and apologetic. "Sorry, it's a nightmare upstairs. What are the press doing in the atrium?"

"Oh, they followed Malfoy in." Potter says off-handedly. "I was bombarded with questions too, just ignore them."

My heart thuds as people glance at me, but I put on an unruffled air. As if I'm used to the paparazzi following me around without me realising. Happens all the time.

"So, when is the instructor supposed to get here? Or is it meant to be a free-for-all?" I drawl, casually flicking my wand.

"Um, Ron and me are the instructors, Malfoy." Potter says awkwardly.

"What? But you haven't even finished your own training, have you?" I reply in disbelief.

"Not quite, but we're having to lead some of the beginner classes to get the new starters up to scratch because we're short staffed. Don't worry, we think we know what we're doing." Potter half-smiles, and everyone else seems appeased.

But just because somebody defeated the Dark Lord doesn't mean they're automatically bloody qualified. I don't say anything, but I can't help the sour look that comes over my face.

"Now, before we start, I want to let everyone know that Auror training is absolutely serious business." Potter says, looking sternly throughout the crowd. "I know a lot of you are here because you think it'll make you famous, but you won't be. The point is, no one should have heard of you, or know who you are. I'm at a disadvantage because people _do_ know me. I can't go on missions undisguised without endangering my whole team. The point is to fade into the background, not to stand out. I hope you're all okay with never getting an ounce of recognition outside this department for putting your life at risk every day."

Some people shuffle around, and look at the ground. Others lose their excited expressions really quickly.

"So, everyone," Weasley steps in, "turn to the person to your right."

Being the second-to-last one to arrive, the only person to my right is the last person to arrive, that Vanessa girl. I turn to her and she flashes me a smile.

"Make sure you have a few feet around you, and you're about ten feet apart." Weasley instructs.

I start to get nervous. I hope they don't want us to start duelling right away! The room gets loud as people shuffle around, waving people away from them, organising themselves and their partner.

"This exercise is a simple pass-or-fail exercise. You will both cast the Disarming Charm, and the one who loses their wand goes home, and fails the course. The half that remain will continue on with today's itinerary. Now, you may begin."

I feel a crushing sensation in my lungs, but I flick my wand as quickly as I can. So does Vanessa, and our spells pulse against each other like two gusts of wind. I grip my wand tight, it feels like it wants to wriggle away from me. I cast a basic Shield Charm and hit her with _expelliarmus_ again. Her face is twisted into anger and determination, and I'm sure mine is similar. We hit back and forth for a while, either we're both too terrible or too good to outwit each other.

After a couple of minutes, reality comes back to me. We're the only ones left fighting, everyone else – about half of the people we started out with – is circled around us, watching silently.

I step forward to cast my spell and Vanessa is immediately defensive, then she steps sideways and tries to get around my Shield Charm, but I block her. We're twisting, moving forward and backwards, practically dancing with one another. I'm starting to sweat, not sure how long I can hold out.

Eventually, Potter steps between us and calls a draw. "You both performed admirably, so I'll give you both passing marks for this one." Weasley jots this information down on his parchment, with a face like thunder. Vanessa elbows me with a grin and we step back into the rest of the crowd. I keep my face impassive, and try not to breathe too loudly.

"So now we can really get going. We're going to start with some of the ground rules." Weasley says, stepping in front of everyone and looking around. "We don't talk to the press, for one, not about Potter, not about being an Auror, not even about your granny's colon problems."

Am I paranoid or is Weasley specifically glaring at me when he says this? He carries on for a while, mostly re-iterating the rules in the guidelines, and I start getting bored and gazing off into the distance for a bit before a loud bang snaps me back to attention.

Potter and Weasley are standing face to face, about twelve feet apart, and both grinning at each other.

"We've decided we can't be bothered with lectures, actually." Says Weasley. "So we're going to show you some basic spells we should all know off-by-heart before training can really start."

The pair pull out their wands, and start rapidly firing spells at one another and ducking, dodging or shielding them as necessary. The audience is captivated and in awe, but they must have practiced this whole routine hundreds of times. It looks so choreographed. Potter even starts narrating the spells he's been using, including the Shield Charm, Confundus Charm, The Knockback Jinx, the Freezing Charm, and more rapid-fire, low-damage spells.

"_Protego!_ Some spells cut straight through a Shield Charm so you want to duck and dive as well, and when dueling you absolutely never want to stand still – uff, _flipendo!"_

Weasley staggers back but recovers, and a red spark shoots from his wand and hits Potter's hand, causing Potter to drop his wand. Potter immediately puts both his hands up, signaling forfeit, and the audience starts applauding. Weasley takes a bow.

"Of course, a real enemy won't abide by the rules and just quit when you drop your wand, that's when they'll want to kill you." Potter says casually, rubbing the mark on his hand. "But practicing dueling with a partner increases your speed and accuracy, and it'll help you think of the right spell you need quickly when the time comes to apprehend a Dark suspect."

"Um, excuse me, but how did _you_ learn how to duel?" An extremely tall girl puts her hand up nervously after she asked.

Potter waves her hand down. "Actually my first duel was with Malfoy here. He was a sneaky bugger, and he taught me that you can never really predict what the other person will do, or even how your own instincts will react."

The rest of the class seems to look over at me with appreciation, and I can feel myself going pink.

We spend a while pairing off and practicing dueling, which everyone else just seems awful at, especially after my disarming duel with Vanessa. Potter and Weasley are going around correcting people, but they don't seem to learn. The blond Gryffindor sends spells so slowly that I don't even need to block them; I can just take my time sidestepping out of the way. I, however, am a natural, and they hardly have to correct me at all. Actually, I think Weasley is just avoiding me.

Eventually, Potter comes up to me. "Malfoy, you don't want to lunge forward when you cast a spell. The small impact on the spell's distance isn't worth it, and it just alerts the other person and gives them more time to react. Use your arm to throw the spell and keep your whole body reactive to what _they_ do, not what you're doing."

"Right." I say, fully concentrating. It's difficult to keep my hair tidy while casting and dodging spells but I think I'm pulling it off.

"Good job everyone." Weasley says as we start to wrap up the session. "You'll want to keep practicing of course, but it's ten o'clock now so there'll be a pile of paperwork for us to sort out."

We troop out of the training room, looking slightly worse for wear. Vanessa's hair has turned into a horrible sweaty nest and the tall girl is clutching her elbow as though it's about to fall off.

Apparently the fully qualified Aurors have designated times where they stop in at the office, barring emergencies, and report back what's going on. And those times are all hands on deck for the rest of us, because they pile us with information, dictations, paperwork and want coffee and sandwiches prepared for them before going back out again.

The day is split between mad flurries of activity when all I can do is follow the orders that are barked at me, fetch this, record that, take note of this, fill that out, where are my biscuits, lend me your wand, and then the moments of peace and quiet where we all try to re-organise everything, file the records away again, destroy the old memos, and try to regain order. Even with forty of us trainees around at any given time, we're still struggling to keep up. I didn't know there were still so many Dark Wizards out there; I thought Potter got rid of them all.

We stagger the lunch breaks so we don't all disappear at once, and mine is one of the very last groups to go, at almost 3 o'clock. I'm absolutely starving, so ten of us all troop to the cafeteria and sit around with sandwiches. Everyone starts to relax and chit-chat, something I'd be wonderful at if this place wasn't crawling with Gryffindors. So I just keep quiet and concentrate on cutting my sandwich into perfectly equal-sized squares and putting enough sugars in my tea.

"So Malfoy, are you really back with Harry Potter?" Says Vanessa. She's leaned forward to talk to me but obviously everyone at the table has heard her, and they're interested too.

"I've never been _with_ Potter, the _Prophet_ just made it up." I say shortly, hoping the knut will drop and they'll realise everything in the papers is a massive lie without much more effort on my part.

"Those photos all looked real to me." Vanessa replies with a gleam in her eye. "You know I didn't fully believe it until I saw them, I thought Harry would have to be _mad_ to be attracted to you. But you're not that bad, are you?"

Not _that bad_? Is she kidding me? "Darling, Potter would be lucky to have me."

"I didn't even realise he was gay." Someone beside me says.

"He told _me_ you two are just friends." Another boy chimes in. Friends?

"Where did he go today, anyway?" Says Vanessa. "I saw him last at around twelve and assumed he went to lunch, but I haven't seen him since then."

Come to think of it, neither have I. He probably _does_ get to go on missions with the other Aurors. I thought he was just boasting about that. Will there ever be an end to his special treatment? The conversation drifts to Harry Potter's whereabouts, his skill with a broomstick, other 'skills' he may have, gag, and then everyone starts talking about their own boyfriends, girlfriends, reasons for wanting to be an Auror, and all those boring things. So I start tuning them out again. Being social isn't really that difficult after all, is it? I think I'm a natural.


	13. Chapter 13

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

By the end of the day, I'm so tired and sore, I think I have a sprain in my everything. We were given scrolls containing our schedules for this week at some point, and all I managed to do was sigh in relief that I don't have a class tonight, and now I'm dragging myself home. I leave the Ministry, walk some distance, then Apparate since I know our Floo is closed.

Walking through the front door is an ordeal in itself. I pretend to listen to Mother's updated dinner plans, and insist that my day went fine, even though she heard speculation on the wireless that I was held hostage at the Ministry because none of the reporters were allowed to contact me.

"Mother, everything was fine, we were just busy and I wasn't allowed to talk to them. No, I won't 'just let them know' I'm fine next time, even for your sake. I'd rather send you an owl." I say, hanging up my robes and undoing the top button of my shirt.

The doorbell rings. Mother rushes in the direction of the kitchen and calls out for me to get it so she can grab the hors d'oeuvres. I walk back through the entrance parlour and heave open the main door to the Manor, and standing there, with a bunch of flowers is - what the fuck?

"Potter?" I want to scream. "What in the bloody hell..?"

"Your mother invited me, and would _not_ take no for an answer. Malfoy, _why_ does she think we're together? What have you told her?" Potter says, stuffing the flowers in my arms and pulling off his scarf, looking somewhat annoyed.

"I told her the _Prophet_ lied about everything and not to believe a word of it, but neither of them listened to me." I reply with a shrug.

"Well Ginny is massively pissed off that I'm here, not that you care, and Ron thinks I'll never come back."

"Don't worry, the Dungeons have been permanently charmed shut." I say, trying to make a joke but Potter looks at me rather darkly. "Right, well, come on through, let's get this over with."

Mother, bless her stupid little heart, is an amazing hostess, but it's obvious to all of us Potter doesn't want to be here. He's sitting next to me looking like he's got a broomstick up his arse, he won't relax, and only gives one or two-word answers to anything we say. I have to get him talking about something he's interested in, if only to break the horrible awkward silences.

"So Potter," I say, then correct myself, "I mean, Harry. I heard Ron Weasley just got back from his honeymoon? Who did he marry?"

Potter shoots me a look that I can't quite read. "He married Hermione, _Draco_, I thought you knew that."

"Oh yes," I say, even though I hadn't even realised they were together, and try to change the subject. "So what is Granger up to these days?"

"She's the one who wrote the law that freed the Elves and allowed them to obtain wands, as well as centaurs, vampires and giants, if they want one."

Father gasps aloud. "My word, how dreadful."

Potter turns to look at him. "Actually, it's been pretty good, because they have to be taught how to use them properly, just like witches and wizards, and it brings them into the realm of our law. So if they do misbehave now, we can handle it, whereas before it was pandemonium."

"And if the giants all learn how to cast spells and want to take over the whole society, how would we feeble tiny wizards be able to stop them?" Father posits, looking rather offended about the whole thing.

Potter starts to grin. "Actually, we have only had one application so far, and I think the first thing Grawp did was sit on his wand and burn his-"

"Wonderful." Interrupts Father, with a cough. Potter just laughs and I work hard not to snicker.

"Anyway, you'd have to ask Hermione about it all. I only get the gist of these things." Potter says, now taking a bite of pudding with much more gusto.

"Oh, we should have all your friends round one day!" Mother suggests brightly, and I inwardly cringe. Please, no.

Potter almost starts choking on his sticky toffee pudding. "Actually, it might be better to have Draco round to ours next, I think Ron and Hermione would like to get to know him a bit more."

Is it me, or did his 'get to know' sound more like he was saying 'drive rusty nails into'?

"Where are you all living now? Not still with those Muggles, surely?" Mother asks in an idly curious way, though I can tell she'd love to stop by his house unannounced and do their interior design for them or something.

"Grimmauld Place." Potter says, and now it's my turn to choke. He looks at me with a smirk as I cough up a raisin from my pudding.

"_The_ Grimmauld Place? The one that we were in line to inherit next?" I sputter. I remember being seriously angry about that. Mother used to make us visit Walburga when I was a child and I hated her so much I couldn't wait until she died so we could absorb that building into the Malfoy portfolio.

"Well, it's only temporary until we find something better." He admits, and that makes me even angrier. That place is a _palace _compared to what he's used to. Sure, it's a massive downgrade from a Manor, but it's perfectly respectable.

"So," Continues Potter, with a very devious air all of a sudden. "How did you both feel when you found out Draco was gay?"

"I'm _not_ gay." I automatically snap.

"Don't be petulant, Draco." Mother says, then turns to Potter with a charming smile. "And we were fine with it, especially since he seemed to have such good taste."

"I did always suspect…" Father chimes in, and I almost have a heart attack.

I glare daggers over at Potter who looks like he's trying not to burst out laughing at this whole bloody charade. He's a git. I always _knew_ there was a fine line between healthy, harmless evil and pure sadism, and Potter's crossing it.

While Mother's rambling on fondly about that _one time _I tried on her clothes when I was six, and Potter is listening intently, I'm plotting devious ways to kill the bastard without getting into trouble. But where would I hide the body? The first place the Ministry would look is under my bed, I'm sure.

When we've finished our coffee and the table has been cleared, Mother pipes up again. "Draco, darling, why don't you give Harry the tour?"

Oh Merlin, not this. But I suppose anything is better than sitting here, and I don't actually have to _give _him the tour. They'll never know I didn't explain the significance of the 1820's painting of my great Uncle Malfoy.

"Of course." I say smoothly, getting up. "Come on - Harry."

Potter follows me out of the dining room, looking somewhat apprehensive about the whole prospect.

"Just get out of here." I say, once we're away from the room enough. "I'll tell them you left right after the tour."

Potter perks up a little. "Thanks, Malfoy. And I never did apologise for… before. You know, at the fundraiser."

"You mean we're apologising for being absolute gits, now?" I say, feigning surprise.

"Yeah well you were a git as well." Potter replies petulantly. "But I was going through some stuff with Ron and the wedding, and that night was a bloody fiasco, and I drank way too much and stupidly thought I could be friends with you instead of Ron, which only made everything worse. So, sorry about that."

Huh. I try to recall the evening as though from his point of view, which I had never considered before. If he'd just been arguing with Weasley that explains why he was there by himself, and if he actually thought he wanted to be friends with me, that partially explains why he wouldn't get off my case.

"I actually thought you were hanging out with me that night because you thought I was still a Death Eater." I admit out of nowhere. Mother probably spiked my virgin cocktail.

"Oh, no, bloody hell. Well, everyone else seems to, but that's probably Skeeter's fault. Just keep showing up for training and everyone will realise you're not that bad."

I roll my eyes. "Seriously, 'not that bad'? Is that everyone's new catch phrase for me today? Don't strain yourself trying to flatter me Potter."

Potter chuckles. "No, your ego is big enough already, I'd hate to make it worse."

"_My_ ego is wonderful, you're the one-" I say, then realise I don't actually want to start an argument. "You know what, you're not so bloody bad either. When you're not being a self-righteous Golden Boy git."

Potter reacts as though this is the best compliment anyone's ever given him, and he beams, all teeth. "Right. I'm off then. See you tomorrow?"

"I suppose you will." I reply, thinking of a whole new day of hard work. And a whole week, month, and lifetime of it after that. Ugh.

When he's gone, I wait a respectable amount of time, and re-enter the dining room. Mother is absolutely thrilled about the whole evening, and all she can talk about is how me knocking boots with Potter is clearly doing wonders for the Malfoy reputation.

"And I simply _must_ smuggle myself into the Ministry so I can be seen putting some support behind some of these crazy new laws that are being passed." Mother says. "Maybe I can even have dinner with the Granger girl!"

"Those laws will be the death of our society." Father puts in sourly.

The next day goes by much the same as the first, with periods of activity then a certain calm. The time seems to fly by and I think I'm picking up on some of the terminology and short-hand that everyone seems to use. Though when someone barked at me to fetch them an SA-14 form and I just looked blankly at them until they did it themselves, how was I meant to know it was a Suspect Acquisition form, with 14 being code for a Dementor? I mean, cut me some slack.

When the clock hits 6, half of us stop what we're doing and head down the corridor towards the class, and the other half have to finish clearing up so they can leave. After we all troop in, I realise the class I'm in has plenty of familiar faces, though I can't put names to most of them, and of course there are no Slytherins present. Though it'd be nice to have something in common with _anyone_ if I have to really go through with this.

Weasley is the last one in, and he walks in with Shacklebolt, who presumably is our instructor. He's meant to be the Minister of Magic but I don't think the elections have officially happened yet, so I imagine he's still in charge of the Aurors as well. It's terribly inconvenient not being able to read the newspapers any more, I have to piece together the news in a very fractured way. Stupid Potter.

"First, well done to everyone for pulling together during this time. We're all working hard, and hopefully things will get back to normal soon, and we can stop paying you all overtime." Shacklebolt's voice is strong and good-humoured, so everyone's at ease automatically. But I can't help feeling like the odd one out, as though no one believes I should be here, and Shacklebolt probably feels the same way.

"We're going to be looking at Concealment and Disguise today, because if we're ever going to send you out into the field, we want to be a hundred percent confident that whatever else you might do, you'll be hidden and untraceable. So even if you make a mess, you'll stay safe enough to get back to the Ministry. That sound good?" Everyone around nods to Shacklebolt and each other.

He introduces us to the Disillusionment charm, tells us about a book on it that we should get, and performs an example of it on himself. He doesn't necessarily disappear, but fades into the background so well that unless he moves or the light catches him oddly, it's hard to tell he's there. He also shows us some Invisibility Cloaks, but I can tell they're knock-offs because they're visible in the right light and the right angle too. And one of them has a frayed edge that you can basically see the person through.

He moves on to disguising our appearance with Transfiguration, and while I'm not a big fan of having to point my own wand at my face when casting a spell that could go badly wrong, he makes it seem easy. We all get a small mirror to use, mine is one of the least cracked and smudged ones, and he gives himself a large handlebar moustache, and after a while and a bit of effort he makes his hair and skin paler as though he was white.

"It's all about focus." He says. "Verbal spell-casting allows your mind to wander when you're young and more worried about homework and dinner-time, but we have to concentrate hard to get the same results."

During the practical part, things go a little haywire. Weasley's beard won't stop growing and people who try to help him keep getting tangled up in it, so I stay at the back of the room and shoot a _Finite incantatum_ at him, and when he realises it was me he just scowls even more. The git.

I manage to give myself a rather good tan, and darken my hair a shade, but I can't ever envision needing to grow a beard in a hurry or make my shoulders broader. Maybe my nose could be less pointy, but otherwise I'm already pretty perfect.

"Right, now everybody put yourselves back to normal and line up. I'm going to stand here at the door, and you have to transform yourself in front of me before you can pass this class." Shacklebolt announces with a careless grin, and me and a few others groan, but go to get in line. Weasley pushes in front as if he has some authority, and I'm about half way back.

It takes a good twenty minutes for the people in front of me to get past Shacklebolt, who is holding a clipboard and ticking off our names as a 'pass' as we leave. He's sent some people to the back of the queue already if they can't Transfigure themselves properly the first time. If they fail the second time, I believe they'll be going home.

When it's my turn, I decide to show off, and give myself an ample pair of breasts, much darker skin, a rounder nose, a giant afro, and I conjure a pair of sunglasses and strut out of the room confidently. Shacklebolt lets out a deep laugh and ticks by my name, so I celebrate a little by shaking my backside all the way down the hallway.

When I step back into the Auror offices, I hear voices so I slow down and stay still, automatically hoping to eavesdrop. It seems that Potter and Weasley are having an argument. I conceal myself, rather expertly if I do say so myself, and step towards them.

"Look, Ron, you're being paranoid, I know for a fact that he couldn't have leaked that parchment because I was _there_ last night."

"You might be under his thumb or shagging him or whatever but don't use it as an excuse to be blind!"

"Shagging him? Don't be an idiot-"

"If I'm an idiot it's only because I let you have it off with Ginny when I _knew_ you'd pull something like this! The _Prophet _had it right all along, didn't they? Now you've covering his precious arse _again_ when he's the prime suspect in all this."

They're both hissing at one another, and Potter looks as absolutely horrified as I feel. Prime suspect? Precious arse? What's going on?

Potter seems to pull himself together before I can. "No, you're an idiot because you're letting fear and prejudice turn you into a massive twat, instead of being rational and realising that an alibi is an alibi, and that I wouldn't lie to cover _anyone's_ arse for this, not yours, not Hermione's, and not bloody Malfoy's."

"How do you even know it was Malfoy that you were with? I bet any one of his ferrety little family could have posed as him and-"

"You think I wouldn't _know_, after everything that's happened?"

"So the _Prophet_ is right? Are you cheating on Ginny?"

"For bloody hell's sake, Ron, are you more worried about the information leaking or the state of me and Ginny? She's going back to Hogwarts in two weeks, she's already made it clear she won't be doing the long-distance thing." Potter says, softer now.

"Yeah, well…" Weasley seems determined to keep the argument going. "I still think you can't be sure about Malfoy and we should drop him from the program before it's too late."

"I definitely think the leak is coming from inside the department, but I _know_ it wasn't Malfoy, okay? So we're going to do something about it, but we're not going to be unfair."

Ron mumbles something, and him and Potter seem to be automatically reconciled. They leave the office together, with Ron saying fondly, "I remember when all you wanted to do was stalk that little ferret, and I thought you were mad. But now I know how you felt."

I let go of a deep breath which I hadn't realised I was holding. My Disillusionment Charm is starting to wear off, and so is my self-Transfiguration. I have one white hand and one black one, and Merlin knows what my hair is doing. I quickly Untransfigure the rest of me, and leave the office before anyone behind me catches up with me and wonders what I was doing.

On the way home I re-play what I heard. Something – some information, some parchment – has leaked from the Auror department. And it's no wonder since they have no hiring standards at all right now. It could have been any one of us new people, or it could have been going on for a long time. All I know is that I'm a prime suspect, so I need to keep an eye out. If I can catch whoever did it, it'll take the suspicions off me _and_ prove that I can hack it as an Auror.

I get home at 8.15, tired and with no appetite, but Mother insists I eat some dinner that was leftover, and gets me to tell her about my day. I tell her it was fine, but don't go into details, except for bragging that it turns out I'm pretty amazing at Concealment and Disguise. She's already wondering out loud when Potter will invite me to his place, whether I should stay the night, or whether that would make the 'wrong statement' about Malfoys, and I let her twitter on with her own thoughts as I try to relax. Her and Weasley should really get together, then they'd be able to concoct the most fantastic stories about mine and Potter's lovelife without us or reality interfering in any way.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **Okay, so I'm updating a bit better these days. I cut my work hours down by about half (because I'm pregnant! Ahhh! AAAHHHH!) so I hope to have more time to get more writing done in general! This is a short chapter, to be fair, but it's leading up to something better.

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

As the months go by, I start to almost get used to the long hours and hard work that comes with Auror training. In fact it seems to become easier the more I learn. Father is even grudgingly proud that I've kept it up all this time. I might not be excelling at every class, but if I do know _something,_ it's how to fake it until I make it. I barely passed the Loyalty class (but in my defense, I was paired up with Finnigan and they only caught me throttling him _once_), but I did really well in Organisation and Transport, which we had to do a test on in the middle of Muggle London for crying out loud. Thankfully I had experience on their underground railway (coins in, and jump over the turnstile. How hard is that?). Next week is Stealth and Tracking, which I'm sure I'll be excellent at as well.

Right now it's my first weekend off, so I'm enjoying the cool September air and taking a walk around the grounds at the Manor. I even nod a greeting at the gardener, who seems shocked, and turns around to busy himself with our roses. Maybe this whole new leaf idea of Mother and Father's wasn't so bad. I'm getting paid more money than I know what to do with, so it's just accumulating in Gringotts, and my life seems far more stable now than it ever has before. I'm starting to see a future for myself. If not as an Auror, then anything.

Though I came into the whole Auror thing assuming I'd fail at every hurdle. I didn't even think they'd want me to start with, let alone consider me as doing well a month later. Maybe I can _actually_ do it, if the next three years goes smoothly.

I've even made what you might call friends, though they never do anything I tell them to, and they make fun of me just as much as I make fun of them. And I refuse to hang out with them outside work. If you can even call that friendship. Most people I started with have all been dropped, so less than fifteen of us remain.

The sun peeks out from behind the clouds all of a sudden, illuminating the day, and I suddenly feel rather chipper. So I impulsively decide I _will_ go to the pub after all, even though I declined the invite that went around on Friday. That's what normal people do on Saturdays, right? I don't even bother to tell Mother where I'm going. _That's_ how impulsive I feel.

I stroll happily out of the gates of Malfoy Manor and Apparate straight to the doorstep of the Leaky Cauldron. Stepping inside, the smell and the décor bring back memories of the shopping trips I used to have to take before school started, and how much I hated them. A wave of nostalgia hits me and it's not altogether unpleasant.

I spot the group of Auror trainees around a table in the corner. There's Vanessa with her back to me, bloody Finnigan, whose first name I can never remember, and a few others milling around and chatting.

I step up to them and drawl, "So, whose round is it?"

I receive a chorus of greeting, and am informed that it is, in fact, my round. So I call them all bastards and saunter over to the bar.

Coming back with a tray loaded with drinks of every kind, I pluck out a glass of Merlot for myself and raise a silent toast, but everyone's too busy clambering for their drink and guzzling it down to notice. Savages.

Watching them all chatting to one another, laughing and pointing, telling stories about each other and giggling, I can't help but feel like they're the strangest bunch of people I've ever had to associate with.

Then all of a sudden I feel a lurch in my stomach as I think of Vince and Greg. Things weren't great between the three of us towards the end, but we were all good mates for years. I try to imagine their reaction to me now, working as an Auror and hanging out with bloody Gryffindors. They'd call me an idiot, or a faker, or not even know what the word Auror meant. Zabini was a prat, but he made me laugh sometimes. I remember he used to have a crush on that Weasley girl. Nott was the runt out of all of us, but he had this complex that only really short people seem to get, like he wanted to be the leader.

And Parkinson hasn't spoken to me in well over a year. I think the night I was supposed to kill Dumbledore was going to be the night we finally went _all the way_, but she dumped me when I couldn't pull it off. As though my sexual prowess was somehow determined by my ability to murder incapacitated old men. Maybe I've matured, or gone soft, but I cringe when I think about how I used to act, and how everyone else around me acted. We were stupid little kids, really.

As I'm taking my last sip of wine, the back door of the Leaky Cauldron bangs open and no one in the world barges through it except Ron bloody Weasley. Ugh. I've managed to successfully avoid him lately, since I hate him and he hates me. But he's like a rash that won't go away. A bright red rash. I should tell him that.

I open my mouth to impart a scathingly witty greeting, but he takes a couple of steps towards us all, flops down on the nearest chair and hides his head in the crook of his arms with a groan that sounds suspiciously like "women".

"Trouble in paradise already?" Says Finnigan.

"Shut up Seamus." Comes Weasley's muffled voice. "Get me a drink."

Seamus, I knew that. Thankfully I only called him Sean one or two times.

Weasley's sour mood seems to immediately affect everyone at the bar. Most of them seem to think he actually has authority over them, and they even follow his orders at work. Just because he defeated the Dark Lord by proxy, for Merlin's sake. So no one wants to seem cheery in front of him, and they start to talk in whispers.

Except Finnigan, of course, who has probably known Weasley for years and doesn't put up with his crap.

"All's fair in love and war you know, mate." Finnigan says bracingly as he plops a beer in front of Weasley.

"I don't know what idiot came up with that phrase," replies Weasley, sitting himself up to nurse his beer. "But they obviously never met Hermione."

"What did you do this time?" Finnigan asks, blithely.

"_I _didn't do anything." Weasley replies, affronted. "She's the one who wants to go bloody camping. I mean, as if this past year has just been 'good practice' and now we have the skills to 'camp properly'! We almost _died_ last time, is she stark raving mad?"

"She always was a bit odd, mate." Shrugs Finnigan, and I can't help letting out a snort.

Weasley turns to me and immediately pulls a face that resembles a slapped arse. "Oh, it's you."

"Yes." I say as scathingly as I can muster. "It is."

"Well bugger off would you, I don't want tomorrow's headlines to be detailing my marital issues."

"Oh come off it Weasley," I spit. "Your boring life wouldn't even make page twelve."

Weasley starts reddening, and I feel a familiar pang of victory. Everyone else starts to silently back away from us.

Weasley sits back and pushes himself up from his chair in a very aggressive manner, and my feeling of victory sinks like a stone into my stomach. Yikes.

Time to exit stage left. I make a show of checking my nails and smoothing my hair. "Well, I think my work is done here. See you tomorrow, fellas."

I make a short bow and whirl around to leave through the front doors. Keeping my pace even but hurrying the hell up, I push through the doors and breathe a sigh of relief as I step out into the cool wind.

All of a sudden I hear the pop of an Apparition and before I realise it, I've run into the newly Apparated Potter with an _oomph_.

"Bloody hell, Malfoy." Says Potter, rubbing his chest and looking pained. "As if Apparating isn't bad enough, I don't need you barrelling into me. What are you running from?"

"Nothing." I say quickly. Just then, Weasley storms out behind me, sees Potter, and his face clears a little.

Potter does a crooked smirk, as if it all makes sense now. "I thought you two were getting along better these days, but I knew it wouldn't last."

"He's a prat, he'll always be a prat, and he's not even trying to hide it that he's the one leaking stuff to the Prophet-" Weasley starts, but Potter cuts him off with a glare.

"What's being leaked to the Prophet?" I put in, trying to sound innocently curious. Maybe this will help me get to the bottom of this.

"Oh, erm, you know…" Weasley backtracks pathetically. "About you two having your little… whatever."

"That's not a leak." Potter says, deadpan.

"That's a bloody haemorrhage." I put in darkly.

"Anyway," Potter turns back to me. "We might as well tell you the truth. The inner workings of the Auror department are being leaked to the Prophet, and we're completely clueless about who's doing it."

"Yes, so we should keep it quiet, don't you think?" Weasley says through his teeth.

"I already told you, I know Draco's not doing it. Firstly, he doesn't have that kind of network any more, and secondly, that night you noticed the parchment disappear was the night I was _at_ Malfoy's house having dinner. No one can be in two places at once."

Weasley looks like he's tired of having this argument, but Potter remains steadfast.

"Well you believe what you want, but we're no closer to knowing anything about it. And all the while, more and more stuff keeps disappearing and showing up as news." Weasley says.

At this point I really wish I'd been reading the papers. If I knew what was being leaked, I could probably talk to a few people and find out what's going on. I might not have much of a 'network' any more but I am still capable of being charming. I suppose I can always grab some old copies of the paper from the makeshift library set up in Hogsmeade while Hogwarts is being re-built.

I excuse myself from Weasley and Potter's conversation, which has turned into a round of speculation over who it could be, but each person either has an alibi, or they were at their own training session that night. Your attendance has to be 100% or you're failed and expelled from the course. I make my way back into the Pub and ignore the hoots of the Auror crowd as I grab some Floo Powder, head straight to the fireplace and call out, "The Three Broomsticks!"

After giving it about a nanosecond of thought, it becomes quite obvious how the 'two places at once' trick could be pulled off. All you'd need is an alibi in a different class schedule. You just make your alibi attend their own class as themselves, then attend your class as you. Either using self-Transfiguration or some kind of potion.

But obviously I can't explain this to Potter and Weasley, because it'd be the equivalent of admitting my own guilt. I have to let them come to their own realisation somehow, and perhaps point them to the perpetrator at the same time. If I can figure it out. But first, I need to actually find out what's been happening, so I extricate myself from the crowd at The Three Broomsticks with difficulty, and head down the lane, past all the rinky-dinky little shops I never deigned set foot in, and end up outside the old empty storehouse that's being used as Hogwart's library for the time being.

I'm all of a sudden grateful for my mother. As much as she concerns herself with silly things, and is cavorting with all the wrong people, she does have her finger on the pulse of society. I wouldn't have even known about this place if it weren't for her endless daily ramblings. I'm glad I have the sense not to tune her out _all_ the time.


	15. Chapter 15

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

A/N: Wow, it's been like two years since I updated this story. Well, I haven't forgotten about it, or my 55 loyal followers. My last update mentioned my pregnancy, and I had myself a little baby girl who was unfortunately born sleeping in Jan 2014. No clear cause as to why she died, and my heart hurts every day. I never stopped writing, but I was mostly writing about my grief and trying to work it out. Only recently I got back into fiction, and I won NaNoWriMo last November. So it gave me the confidence to come back to this story, which I have always really enjoyed writing.

So… if it's been a while since you read the story, here's what you may have forgotten. Surely you remember the premise - Skeeter takes advantage of a private, purely heterosexual moment between Malfoy and Potter, and convinces the entire wizarding world that they are a couple. Malfoy, cleared of all war crimes, is a newly enrolled Auror thanks to the Ministry's relaxed hiring standards. He is also currently the prime suspect for leaking important documents to the press, but he is totally innocent, having turned over a New Leaf and everything. Here we find him, spending his Saturday investigating this crime, before Weasley has had enough of him and rats him out to the Ministry.

* * *

><p>The warehouse door opens with a whine, and the hush inside is stale and oppressive.<p>

"Yes?" Barks the Hogwarts librarian impatiently, before my eyes even adjust to the sudden darkness.

"Uhm, I'm looking for… old copies of the _Daily Prophet_." I say, blinking and realising her desk is right in front of me.

"1800 through present, to the left, third row back. If you see daylight, you've gone too far." The librarian says harshly, but seems amused by herself.

I go towards that general direction. The aisle starts with the very earliest papers, yellowing and curling, so I start on the other side and grab an armful of the latest papers, what I judge is about two month's worth.

Sitting down at a nearby table, I methodically start with the first one mentioning Potter and I – the ridiculous bathroom incident. After about three paragraphs and a 20% raise in blood pressure, I push that one aside. I don't need to read all the grisly details of Skeeter's fantasy world, do I?

No, but I should read them anyway. Especially if she is the one publishing the leaks. She could know who is behind this whole thing, so I need to keep abreast of everything she's written. Plus I can't keep burying my head in the sand. If I know what she's written about me, I can better plan my next move. Especially since the public takes this stuff as gospel.

So I keep reading. Page after page of mine and Potter's 'dramatic' love affair. Me hugging him with relief after he 'rescued me' from Azkaban by speaking in my defence. But honestly, the photo just showed me desperately yanking Potter's sleeve over and over. Since when does that constitute a hug?

A couple of 'newsless' weeks go by, wherein Potter is the only one photographed, and they analyse his outfit, hair, scar colour (_honestly_), and they just stick a stock photograph of me as an insert with some caption about how we can't be seen in public together for one reason or another. But every day they throw in a lie about how Potter 'misses' me, according to a 'close friend' of mine (a title which Skeeter presumably bestows upon herself). The stories are getting pushed further and further back in the paper, going from front-page news to practically a caption on page 13, next to the legal notices.

But one of the legal notices jumps out at me, because it has Skeeter's name in it too. It's a paragraph about Skeeter being an illegal Animagus. Her punishment was a fine of 1,000 Galleons, this public notice of her ability, and being put on the 'restricted registered' Animagus list, which is usually for the newly qualified, wherein they can only transform in the sight of a Ministry worker, who must note the date and time of each transformation, and note down any markings of the Animagus.

Which is no punishment at all really. If you're a bigger animal it might actually work – a bear or a griffin can't roam the streets after all – but there's still nothing stopping Skeeter from transforming into a bug at home and flying anywhere she wants to eavesdrop.

She _should_ be in Azkaban right now, I think, clenching my fist uselessly. But, in reality, Azkaban couldn't hold a human-beetle for very long, and its cells are probably full anyway. Plus Skeeter is the number one reporter for the _Daily Prophet_, a company who still carries a lot of sway over the top-dogs at the Ministry. Not many people were displaced after the war. A lot of figureheads changed, but the people who do the day-to-day work, above and below the table, are still running the place. A fact my mother is very happy about, because it means that we didn't entirely lose the Malfoy family network of connections.

Taking a deep breath and continuing to read, I pick up the next paper and realise we're back on the front page. It seems the photographers were snapping shots of me while I walked around the grounds of the Manor, through some lens that zoomed in on me from far away. I look all blurry, but there I am, wandering the grounds, kicking at stones, yelling at staff. They've even titled it 'Housebound and Potterless', and can't stop going on about how depressed I am without Potter, who is pictured next to me, yelling and looking enraged. The latest gossip was that he dumped me, and I was depressed and suicidal about it.

Oh, crap. This one even quotes Mother, "He hardly leaves his room, the poor thing, but I'm sure Potter will come around."

Honestly, the only thing Skeeter could come up with as a good enough reason for Potter to dump me was the Weasley girl, whom Skeeter never calls Ginny, just various red-haired themed nicknames throughout the article, like 'fire-haired girl' and 'redheaded temptress'. Skipping to page 3, the story continues with pictures of him and her holding hands, sharing ice cream (ugh, unhygienic), and window shopping in Diagon Alley. The pictures show them lovey-dovey with each other and annoyed with the camera-man by turns. Quotes galore come from various never-named 'friends' of Weasley and Potter, saying those two belong together and I was simply a good-looking but evil blight on Potter's track record.

The next few weeks continue this trend, going so far as to list the 'top ten rebound relationships' for me to potentially get into, featuring both men and women. I glance a few of them over, including an especially inviting-looking blonde girl who I vaguely recognise from Hogwarts. Each picture comes with a paragraph detailing why I should go on a date with them, most of which I skip over.

Then comes our 'reconciliation' page, which I've already seen, so no need to relive that night, thankfully. After that it's my initiation into the Auror ranks, which Skeeter clearly knows nothing about, but she has it on 'good authority' that the interview process is 3 weeks long and requires a 4-hour long interview with a Truth Potion. Which I apparently only skipped out on because Potter 'pulled a few strings' and got me accepted with no fuss. The mentions of the Weasley girl have dropped to zero by this point, as if Skeeter has completely forgotten she exists. Hopefully that pissed the Weasley off.

Becoming so absorbed in the dramatic story of mine and Potter's made-up lovelife, particularly what we must be getting up to all day at the Ministry together, I almost miss the first discreet mention of the Ministry leaks, in the guise of a news story about imports and exports to and from Great Britain. The borders have been strengthened ten-fold over the past few months and the cost of transporting items in and out of the country has not only risen dramatically, but it's also become a perilous endeavour, particularly on the East side of the country, which faces the North Sea. Seems innocuous enough, but I can read between the lines.

So basically, in summary, the Dementors have been removed from Azkaban, and it's taking vast resources and manpower to keep them out of England. And Shacklebolt has no idea how to control them. And the import/export department of the Ministry is taking the brunt of the cost and passing it along to the wizarding community.

The reason such an bland article – the price of import, border control, red tape – jumped out at me was the quote from an 'inside Ministry source'. "We can't get recruits fast enough to keep up with demand, and hiring standards have clearly been relaxed for the time being."

I'm sure all the Ministry departments have relaxed their hiring standards right now, so it hardly narrows down my field of suspects. But I'm positive the leak is coming from the Auror department. So really, I doubt I've gotten much out of all this reading after all. There isn't even any author credit given to the article. It could been Skeeter or anybody. But at least I know what I'm up against.

I continue reading up until yesterday's paper, catching more stories like Shacklebolt's plan to 'forcibly retire' the heads of all Ministry Departments who claimed to be under Imperius during the war, citing no comment on his part. My guess is that they were all faking it, despite not being named. I remember all sorts of them coming and going from our Manor at will. And I'm sure Shacklebolt knew it too, and wanted his plans for them to be kept private.

All in all, the stories aren't sensationalised much, just slanted enough to make you slightly uncomfortable with the current state of affairs. The angle is, Shacklebolt has too much power, and may not be wielding it as well as the public expects. The fact that they never quote a comment of his gives off the impression that he's a far-away, silent-dictator type. It's quite cleverly done.

And, quite obviously, not done by Skeeter. She'd have had the colour of his boxers as the front page spread with a question about whether men in purple underpants could successfully rule an entire Wizarding community.

So not only do I have no idea who is leaking the information, I have no idea who it is being leaked _to_, so I can't even interrogate them. So this whole exercise has been pointless.

Leaving the pile of newspapers on the table – at least I smoothed and refolded them as I went along – I get up and stomp out of the pathetic makeshift library, muttering "thanks for nothing" to the librarian on my way out.

As I walk through Hogsmeade, I work myself into a lather. I'm _not_ going to be the scapegoat for this, when the dung hits the fan. Obviously the new anonymous journalist doesn't have _much_ for information, that's why their articles are shoved all the way in the back of the paper. But when they have been leaked something _really_ juicy, it'll explode onto the front page and I'll be sacked at the best and thrown in Azkaban at worst.

I won't let it happen. I need to do some sleuthing, if outright interrogation of the journalist isn't possible. I know I haven't had my Stealth and Tracking lesson yet, but I might have to snoop around inside the _Prophet_ building and see if I can find out who's writing those bloody articles. It might involve peeking inside people's desks, so I'll need a way to hide myself.

Perhaps I can use a Disillusionment Charm. I've been practicing them at home, and can practically walk around the Manor undisturbed if I'm quiet enough. Though everyone ignores me round there anyway, so I don't know how much of it is actual skill.

Either way, I don't have much choice. I decide to pop into The Three Broomsticks and Disillusion myself in the bathroom, then come out and use the fireplace to go back to The Leaky Cauldron again, since the _Prophet_ HQ is on Diagon Alley. And the good news is, I won't have to see the Aurors in the pub again and have them wonder where I'm off to.

It turns out, getting through The Three Broomsticks and into the bathroom was easy enough, despite the raging crowd, but getting out is a different matter. People are bustling in and out, and I don't want to bump anyone. And there's a giant crowd by the fireplace, and they're seeing their friends off and welcoming people who arrive. I doubt I'll make it unseen, since they'll see the flames go green and I'll have to shout where I'm going to.

So I ditch the Disillusionment idea for now. I can cast it when I'm at The Leaky Cauldron, and sneak out that way.

Stepping out of the fireplace at The Leaky Cauldron brings me face to face with the Auror crowd, who look like they're just leaving, heading into Muggle London, looking drunk and daring. Well, good luck to them.

"You coming, Malfoy?" Call a couple of people, waving their arms to beckon me over.

"I'm going to pull a Muggle girl!" Says another.

"Oh, no, I'm going – I've got things to do." I mumble, pointing to the Diagon Alley exit and trying to duck away.

But I'm followed, by Weasley. He's not very stealthy about it either. Just stomping up behind me and tapping me on the shoulder.

"Where are you sneaking off to, Malfoy?"

"I'm just, I'm running errands. Malfoy business." I say, lifting my chin up at him.

"Yeah right, you ran off right after you found out stuff was being leaked to the _Prophet_, probably to go protect your sources!"

Okay, Weasley sounds – and smells – a bit drunk.

"Firstly," I say, holding up a finger, "I knew about the leak a while ago, so I didn't _just _find out about it."

Weasley looks dim and shocked, and it reminds me of when I told Goyle that you shouldn't eat flobberworms.

"Secondly," I add, "you have no evidence against me, so until you get some, which you won't, I'd like you to keep your trap shut."

This makes Weasley's mouth actually close for once, but he crosses his arms and says. "Fine. I don't have any now, but I'll get some. You're not leaving my sight."

"What?" I splutter. "You can't just _follow me _around!"

Weasley smirks. "Actually, yes I can. I'm officially putting you under surveillance. One of the perks of being an Auror. Let's see if you're _really_ running errands."

Ugh. Fine. Change of plan. I'll have to pretend to run errands until Weasley gets bored, or it's dinnertime or something. Once he gives up, then I'll slip into the _Prophet_ building.

So Weasley tails me, not quite walking beside me, but not staying far enough out of my way to lose him, either. I take a leisurely walk over to Gringott's, and step through the shiny new face of the building, so recently fixed after it was mysteriously destroyed during the war. Some people say Potter flew a dragon out of here, but others claim it was just a flock of enchanted umbrellas.

Anyway, I step inside, and make my way over to the Goblins. Weasley steps a little close, so I shoo him away, hissing that I need privacy for my financial transactions. His ears shine scarlet and he takes about four large paces backwards.

"How can I help you, young Mister Malfoy?" Croons a Goblin. They've always been alright, Goblins. Unless you owe them something. But when they have your money, they're fine.

"Well, yes, I'd like to check on my accounts." I say, with what I hope is quiet authority, and not a hoarse whisper so Weasley doesn't hear me.

"You'd like to visit your vault?" The Goblin clarifies. "You'll need your key."

"Ah, well, no," I stutter. "I don't have my key, and I don't want to go down there. I just… I want you tell me what our current balance is."

The Goblin pulls a face. "You want me to travel down there alone, count all your coins, then come back up and report them to you?"

"Uh, well, is that possible?" I stammer. I infer from his grimace that it's a no. "For a Malfoy?"

"When you put it that way," the Goblin replies, suddenly smirking, "absolutely **not**. NEXT CUSTOMER."

I do an abrupt turn and stalk away, embarrassment radiating from me. Weasley stops staring at the ceiling and hurries to follow me.

"What happened?" Weasley asks with a grin, once we're outside. "Got no money left?"

"Don't be silly. I forgot my key, that's all." I snap, still feeling my cheeks burning.

"Well, I have a few tips for frugal living, if you're interested."

Weasley thinks he's so bloody funny, and he goes on for about ten minutes, cracking himself up picturing me darning my own socks, and wearing outfits twice in a row.

I desperately want to snap something horrible about him, his stupid face, or his fat mother, but I know that provoking him would mean he'll renew his determination to follow me for even longer. Or renew his determination to beat me up.

So I strike upon a genius idea, and head towards the ice cream shop.

"I fancy a 99." I remark airily, though I'm sure my sudden directional change and increased speed is betraying my veneer of spontaneity a bit.

I stomp down the street until I reach the shop, and open the door. In another strike of malevolent genius, I open the door wide and gesture for Weasley to enter first. He looks bemused.

I order us an ice cream each, despite Weasley protesting that he'll pay for his. He reaches inside his pocket and pulls out what's probably his last Galleon in the world.

"Don't be silly," I say with a smile, plucking our ice creams from the serving girl and handing one to him. "This is my treat."

Weasley scowls at me. "What are you playing at, Malfoy?"

"_Nothing_, Weasley." I reply, all light and innocent. "But we might as well try to be friends, right?"

Either something just crawled up Weasley's arse and died, or he's not so keen on this idea. I sit down at a nearby spindly-legged table and gesture for Weasley to sit opposite me. He does so stiffly, clearly struggling with repulsion. I try to quell my laughter.

"What's really going on, Malfoy. And no dung." Weasley says through gritted teeth.

"I just decided, what's the point in hiding the truth from you, if you're going to follow me, you'll find out eventually." I say, with my most conspiratorial tone. I even lean on the table towards him for effect.

He subconsciously mirrors me, leaning closer. "What's the truth? What are you really up to?"

"Well, I suppose you've heard about Potter and I." I say bluntly.

Weasley's eyes go wide. Brown, I notice. He seems excited but wary. "Go on."

"Well, I…" I trail off, as though admitting this is difficult or embarrassing. "I know he doesn't want to be seen with me, so he's been covering up our relationship as much as he can."

Bug-eyed and slack-jawed, Weasley is listening.

"Well I was just about to Floo right to his place and tell him I'm _finished_. I'm tired of being ridiculed in the papers for nothing!" I exclaim, clutching my chest, trying to channel Skeeter. "Do you know how it _feels_ to think someone is ashamed of you?"

Completely absorbed in my story, Weasley nods slowly and looks at his knuckles. "Yeah… Kind of."

"And anyway, I've had my eye on someone else." I say, in a low voice. "And don't ask who. It will never be, between him and me."

I pause for effect, to let Weasley's curiosity sink in, and he looks up at me. Then I deliver the final blow, making sure to lock our eyes intensely. "I just thought, if I could spend some alone time with him, he might see me for who I _really_ am."

Weasley's curious gaze snaps into one of horror in a split second, but he can't take his eyes off me.

"Malfoy, what are you – are you serious?" A red flush is creeping across his face, from chin to forehead.

I take the opportunity to clutch his nearest hand with both of mine, ice cream long forgotten. "Ron, don't say you haven't thought about it. About _us_. Hermione would never have to know—"

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE MALFOY." Weasley roars, and tips his chair back with the force he uses to get up and storm out of the shop. I hear him ranting and raging about how he's 'not that way' and I'm 'not right in the head'.

Leaning back in my chair, taking a victory lick of my ice cream, I feel supremely victorious. Lost him.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: **Hoping to be able to update once a week, though no guarantees on Chapter length. I am so glad to get reviews, so thank you to the people who sent nice words my way :) looking back at my old reviews, I can see people pointing out plot holes and stuff, which is fine, but it makes me want to justify them a bit lol.

It IS worrying that they let just anyone become an Auror trainee, but at this point most of the country believes they've won and they're safe from harm, so they aren't worried. The Auror department knows better, but they're running on skeleton staff so they don't have a choice. Not to mention the fact that it is canon - JKR says that anyone who participated in the Battle of Hogwarts and survived was allowed in! The only teeny tiny technicality is that Draco was fighting for the wrong side, but he was cleared of all charges, rightly or wrongly, and Harry trusts him, rightly or wrongly.

And Arpho, I totally ship H/D too, they are my OTP, and it breaks my heart to keep them apart! But I think that builds tension, and I definitely enjoy writing the tiny hints here and there. And I am trying to follow canon as much as I can, so we all know they don't end up together. Obviously I'm not following it 100%, because JKR would _never_ trust Draco to be an Auror. But she left it blank for 19 years, and they didn't start having kids of their own for a few years yet, so that's where I come in.

Anyway, feel free to send me more questions if something seems amiss. With such a long gap between chapters, I am 100% guaranteed to mess up consistency somewhere. Anyway, onwards!

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER SIXTEEN<strong>

I've barely finished Weasley's untouched ice cream, also known as my victory ice cream, when the shop door bangs open with a clang and I flinch tremendously.

"Malfoy, what on Earth do you think you're playing at!?"

It's Potter. And I can't help throwing him a sheepish look. Even though I'm still proud of myself.

"Okay, it's not what you think—" I say, in my own defence, but Potter interrupts me with a glare.

"Malfoy, how about you skip the part detailing what it's _not_, and tell me what it _is_."

The git. Why does he always think he can tell me what to do?

"Weasley started it. He was following me." I say, in a sulky tone.

"So you thought it'd be a _wonderful bloody idea_ to make him think that you and I were having an affair and that you wanted to dump me and jump _his_ bones instead? To keep him off your trail?" He says madly, and part of me thinks he just doesn't understand my logic.

I stand up with as much dignity as I can muster, despite the serving girls all gathering around the ice cream machine and giggling about us.

"It got rid of him, didn't it?" I say, spreading my arms as if to show how much better it is without him here.

"And if it hadn't? Would you still be snogging him over your ice creams right now?" Potter spits out.

All of a sudden I feel those ice creams repeating on me. "_No, _I was perfectly in control, actually. I knew my plan would work. And what does it matter to you anyway?"

Honestly, I thought Potter would find this whole thing funny, since it was just a harmless prank, but he's gone off in an entirely different direction.

"It matters to me that Ron is… _married_. And you can't just profess your undying love to married people!" Potter splutters, after somewhat floundering. "Or straight people!"

"Come off it, Potter." I dismiss his obvious lie. "You're probably just jealous."

Potter bites his bottom lip in anger, probably to prevent himself from punching me. "You're probably just a bastard."

Wow, what a quip. I can't help but smirk. "Fine, I'll admit to that. I just can't have that ginger weasel following me around all day. I have important things to take care of."

I make to walk past Potter, whose anger seems to have deflated. "Ron said that too. You seemed suspicious, kept coming and going from the Leaky Cauldron? What's that about?"

I suddenly remember that Potter has that neat little Invisibility Cloak, and it's an expensive one at that. And much more effective than a Disillusionment Charm.

"Speaking of which, do you mind if I borrow your Invisibility Cloak?" I ask casually while we leave the shop together, as if I borrow valuable magical artifacts from people all the time.

Potter shoots me a panicked look. "How did you – ahem, what Cloak d'you mean?"

"Oh, I don't know." I say, casually sarcastic, walking up the street towards the _Prophet_ building. "The one that covers up baby dragons, dirty mud-slinging Third-years, and Gryffindor spies in Slytherin train carriages."

"Oh yeah." Remarks Potter. "I don't suppose I hid it very well, did I?"

"Don't worry, no one believed me when I told them anyway. Those Cloaks are only meant to have a few months in them at best."

"Why do you need it anyway? Not planning to pilfer from the Auror department, by any chance?"

I put my hand over my chest, mock-offended, but decide on just telling him the truth. "As if. I was hoping to find out who was behind that whole thing actually, save you and old Shacklebolt the job."

"And save your own arse." Potter puts in, elbowing me in the side.

"A man _does_ have the right to fight any false accusations made against his… person." I say in my most legal-sounding voice. It seems to actually convince Potter, because he stops short, sighs, and deftly pulls something out of the front of his robes. The honourable twat.

"Wow, and here I thought you'd just put on a stone or two." I say, genuinely surprised at Potter's true form. "Don't those Weasleys feed you?"

"Shut up, Malfoy." He says with the tone of a 3 year old sticking out their tongue. He pushes the material against me. It's cool and silvery, almost like holding water. Wow, this _is_ expensive. Even my father probably couldn't afford this, and that's saying something.

After being absorbed in its beauty and flawlessness for a few moments, I snap back to myself. "Right, well, I'm off then."

"Oh no you're bloody well not." Says Potter. "I'm coming with you."

Okay, no. No. I'm not having Potter's clunkiness ruining my expert plans for espionage. And we won't both _fit_ under this Cloak, will we? Plus I don't want him taking credit for _my_ hard work, when I find out who's responsible for this. I figure out a genius plan to lose him.

I squint my eyes behind Potter, as if I can't quite make out what's there, and as his eyes flick to follow mine, I quickly wrap the cloak around myself and run away.

But alas, I am foiled when Potter spins back around, leans to his right, and grasps the back of my shirt collar with surprising reflexes. "Oh no you don't."

"But _Potter_," I whine, "it's _my_ mission, I shouldn't have to share it."

"And it's _my_ Cloak, so we'll both have to share. Plus, I doubt you even know what you're doing."

"I do. I was going to spy on the _Prophet _office, see if I could find out who the journalist is, or who the informant is." I say, feeling pride swelling in me at my own plan.

"You do know that's highly illegal, right?" Potter confirms.

"That's why we need to be highly _invisible_." I reply. Potter shrugs, apparently agreeing with me.

So Potter worms his way under the Cloak too, after actually making sure no one's roaming the streets, and we both have to duck a little to make sure our feet are covered.

I quickly learn to keep in step with Potter, or our bodies bump awkwardly together as we walk. I'm sure he's shared the Cloak with Weasley and Granger and female Weasley all the time, so he's probably used to it, but this whole close contact thing is really uncomfortable for me.

At the office, I go to open the main door, but Potter slaps my hand away with a hiss. "We can't just open it, or people will see it open by itself."

Oh, I hadn't considered that. "You've done this before." I comment approvingly.

So we wait. And wait. About twenty boring, Potter-breath smelling minutes go by. My back is aching from the stooping posture I've had to adopt, and my patience is in shreds. But I won't crack first.

"Oh, fuck it." Potter says, then yanks the door open and pushes us both through.

The entrance is deserted, which is what you'd expect on a Saturday, but people may still be in their offices doing overtime. I don't know anyone who works the standard Monday-Friday, 9-5 routine any more. It's become archaic.

The lobby is rather grand-looking, in a homey kind of way. Like a drawing room decorated by House Elves, with wood paneling and a deep red carpet, leading to a marble staircase.

"Wow, nice place." Potter whispers, and I roll my eyes.

By the staircase is a sign denoting which department is on which floor.

_Advice Columnists/Obituaries – Ground floor_

_Opinion & Classifieds – 1__st_ _floor_

_Sports Commentary – 2__nd_ _floor_

_News – 3__rd_ _floor_

_Senior Management – Penthouse_

We don't have to discuss it to silently agree to check out level 3, and if that doesn't yield anything, try the penthouse. This place is obviously one where you start at the bottom and work your way up.

Puffing under the warm Cloak after awkwardly clambering up two flights of stairs, and only being elbowed in the lung about seven times, we make it to the News department.

It's completely deserted.

I rip off the Cloak, taking a welcome breath of air. "Bloody hell, that was pointless."

"No it wasn't." Potter hisses, to my left, under the cloak still. "Get back under here. Anyone could come along any minute!"

"And say what?" I snap back, dreading going back under that thing. "Just say it's official Auror business."

"We both know that's not how it works." Potter replies, but I'm already striding purposefully towards the desks, which are all lined up neatly, each with a typewriter and some tidy papers on them.

Obviously, the notes aren't going to be laid out on the desk next to a nice neat 'illegal Auror informant' sign, so I start pulling open drawers.

The first few desks yield nothing more than quills, paper binders, and inexplicably, a mug full of toenail clippings. It speaks a lot for my new-leaf-good-guy persona that I don't even incinerate the mug, and the bloody desk along with it.

None of the desks even identify who uses them, but personal effects – said mug, a few photo frames with smiling men, women and children in them, and a couple of kitten calendars are littered around.

It's not until I get to the other side of the room that the desks look more permanently owned. I suppose it makes sense – the lift heading towards the penthouse is over on this side. So the 'next-in-lines' probably situate themselves here for their own ego boost, and everyone else has to use whatever desk at the back is free.

Skeeter's desk sticks out like a sore thumb. Ostentatiously decorated with bright feathery-looking lamps, autographed photos of herself clinging to numerous so-called celebrities – including Potter himself, looking like he's biting back an illegal curse – and covered with notes and piles of parchment. Everything is labeled 'IMPORTANT' or 'CONFIDENTIAL'.

I can't help but be drawn to it. I _know_ she's not the one writing the dry, factual articles, but I go over there anyway. I'd _love_ to get revenge on Skeeter for everything she's done to me. I'd love to write a story about _her_ lovelife. With Hippogriffs.

Her desk drawers are a complete jumble, full of snatches of paper, broken things, fake nails, and something labeled 'emergency perfume'.

"Potter, have you ever had a perfume emergency?" I ask with a smirk, holding up the bottle.

Then I realise I have no idea where Potter is. I call him again, trying to keep the concern out of my voice. "Potter?"

Crap. He's probably gone wandering off with the Cloak. Typical self-important prat.

Just then, I hear that ticking noise that makes my chest clench in panic. Unmistakably Skeeter, coming up the stairs.

Fuck. I look around in a panic, wondering where to hide. My eye falls on the world's tiniest supply cabinet, and it'll have to do. Four long strides and I'm there, and I wrench open the door and slam it behind myself just before I hear Skeeter flick the office door open.

"It'll only need to be three-hundred words, the whole thing is drivel anyway, so they won't be dedicating much space to it. We can title it 'Modifications' instead of errors, the legal implication is the same. Start with, 'With apologies, the _Daily Prophet_ corrects the following statements…'…"

Skeeter is talking to her quill rapidly as she heads to her desk. I can see her through the crack in the supply cupboard where the hinges don't quite come together with the frame. She plonks herself ungracefully down at her desk, and continues rambling about such _minor_ corrections as the Giant referred to in the 'Giant/Wizard/Muggle love triangle' article was actually just a rather tall Swedish woman, and the quote mistakenly attributed to Kingsley Shacklebolt in her piece about his impending death from lingering Dark curses was actually said by an anonymous source in a message sent by owl.

I can't help rolling my eyes in the darkness. What a bloody crackpot. I hope she's not planning to spend the rest of the day here.

After ten or so minutes finishing up her 'corrections', I breathe a sigh of relief when she tells her quill it can rest, because she has another appointment. Then I see her open her desk drawer and start rummaging around, and my heart sinks back to my feet.

She's looking for her emergency perfume.

Which is still in my hand.

After a bit more rummaging, Skeeter looks like she's getting more and more impatient. She looks around suspiciously at the other desks, as if they're hiding her solution to the epidemic of 3PM bodily odour. Or maybe she thinks their owners are the ones that are pilfering her perfume.

"_Accio perfume!"_ She trills, with a sudden flick of her wand.

Oh no. The perfume wiggles its way out of my hand, and crashes through the cupboard door, smashing itself into shards of glass and exploding perfume everywhere. But the spritzer part stays in tact and flies obediently over to Skeeter.

Her arm is out to catch it, and she locks her eyes to me, drenched, stinky, and cowering inside a cupboard. A nasty, gleeful smirk spreads across her lipsticked face.

"Mr. Malfoy, long time no see." Skeeter says, falsely polite.

I just stare moodily at her, and wonder how I'm going to get myself out of this one. I try to step out of the cupboard with all my wits – and dignity – about me.

Not needing a response, Skeeter continues. "Now, what would an ex-Death-Eater-turned-Auror be doing illegally spying at a nationally-respected newspaper office? Rooting around in _my_ desk, no less."

"You can mind your own bloody business." I can't help but snap.

"Oh but this _is_ my business, Malfoy. Let me guess, your good friend Mr. Potter must be nearby, am I correct? _Homenum revelio!"_

We wait a second. Nothing happens. Potter might have gone up to the Penthouse without me, but I didn't see the lift doors open. He might simply have ditched me and gone back to the pub for all I know.

"Hm. So you're acting alone. What were you looking for? My next story? Dirt on me, to discredit me? Because honestly, Malfoy, you could have easily discredited my story, by simply not acting so helplessly smitten with the Potter boy. I was quite embarrassed for you, really. Falling all over yourself like that."

Rage is boiling within me as she speaks, but I clamp my mouth shut and don't let myself reply.

"Well, if you aren't even going to engage in polite conversation with your old friend, I suppose I should owl the Auror department right away…" Skeeter says softly, but with a dangerously threatening tone.

"No!" I yelp involuntarily. "What… what do you want?"

"Hah, there's nothing I want from the likes of you, little boy." She patronises, leaning back onto her desk a little and admiring her own fingernails. "I just like to see you squirm."

"Well, before you rat me out, think about it…" I say, warningly. "How will it look in the papers if I'm kicked out of the Aurors? Your story will be finished."

Skeeter seems to consider this, and consider other angles her story could take. "You're right. The public loves the redeemed-Death-Eater angle. They'd hate to see what a disgrace you really are."

"Exactly." I say. Maybe I will get to keep my job after all.

"But, my silence has a price." Skeeter adds after a thoughtful pause, picking her quill back up from her desk.

"Uh, a price?" I say dumbly.

"Yes, dear. Unless you want me to tell the Auror department that you've been using illegal surveillance on respected members of the general public, you'll have to do _exactly_ as I say." Skeeter seems to actually be enjoying herself. I knew she was twisted.

I cock my eyebrow. "I thought you didn't need anything from the likes of me?"

"Okay, I admit it. You're well placed in the Auror department to get me what I need, the fact that I have a little Malfoy doing my bidding is just icing on the cake." Skeeter says happily, and picks up a piece of parchment and begins writing.

"Now," she continues, "there's an informant in your department, reporting to bloody Mulligan. That fat idiot thinks he'll get promoted before me, he's certain his informant is onto something big. Huge. You have to find out who is informing him, and what the story is. If I can scoop it out from under his fat nose, his career will be destroyed."

I realise my mouth was hanging open, and I snap it shut. Hah! Skeeter wants me to do exactly what I was going to do anyway. But I can't let her know that.

"You want me to spy on my own _department?" _I say, as if in shock. "I don't know, Skeeter. Can't you just do your little bug thing and find out?"

A cloud passes over Skeeter's face. "I'm spellbound to my human form, thanks to you."

"Well, I suppose I could keep an eye out… I'm actually very good at spying, but you were just far too clever for me this time." I decide to butter her up, in hopes that she won't make any more crazy demands of me.

"I know." She says briskly, but a pink tinge has coloured her cheeks a little. "I expect an owl within the week."

After that, she walks over to me, grabs me by the shoulder, and leads me downstairs and back out of the building. She waits for me to Apparate away before she goes anywhere, so I can't sneak back inside.

I arrive back at the gates of the Manor, frustrated about Potter but realising I've done a pretty good job. Of course, I won't actually _give_ Skeeter any of my information, but as long as she thinks I'm playing along, she might be useful in helping me find out who the informant is, and then I can take that info straight to Shacklebolt.


	17. Chapter 17

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

I don't see Potter again until Tuesday, so I actually almost completely forget about the whole him-disappearing incident until he charges up to me in a hallway at the Ministry, looking a little bit livid.

"Draco, what the _fuck_ were you playing at, getting yourself caught by Skeeter?" He hisses at me, gripping my arm and leading me to his office. Yes, he has his own office now.

"Excuse me, I think it turned out for the best, actually. She told me who had been publishing the leaks in _your_ department! And _you_ were nowhere to be found anyway, so what do you care?"

"Nowhere to be found? I was _right there_, I watched you bumbling your way through that whole incident. You're probably the worst spy I've ever seen, Malfoy." He says, angrily. But he can't keep up that level of rage, so he deflates a little. "But at least now we know Mulligan is the one doing the publishing. And, after you had gone, I found his desk and nabbed his address from some paperwork."

"Great," I say, brightly. "When are we going to check him out?"

"_We're_ not doing anything. Ron is coming with me. At least he won't be caught drenched in horrible perfume. I can still smell it on you, you know." Potter pulls a face.

"Your compulsion to sniff your co-workers is your own business." I snap, stung. "And this is _my_ mission, I'm the one who'll get the blame if this informant isn't caught. I'm the one who had the idea to sneak into the _Prophet_ building! You wouldn't even have a case if it weren't for me!"

Potter rolls his eyes. "As much as you want to make everything about you, this actually isn't any of your business. I doubt you even care about the Ministry, or the Aurors, or any of it."

"So what?" I reply hastily. "Doesn't mean I want to get sacked and dragged to Azkaban."

Potter walks towards his office door and opens it. "Don't be silly, Draco. Sacked is one thing, but you aren't going to Azkaban, as long as you don't actually talk to Skeeter. Don't worry yourself about it and get back to work."

I purse my lips with anger, debating whether to keep arguing. But I know it won't do any good. Potter's thick skull is practically impenetrable. So I settle with huffing and shutting the door behind me with a little more vigor than usual.

The day passes eventlessly with endless piles of paperwork – I swear, when I'm a real Auror I won't just throw parchment everywhere like a spoiled child – and getting about a million cups of tea. Now that the weather is cooling off, everyone's desperate for tea.

That evening's class is based on Stealth and Tracking, and it actually gives me a few good ideas. I plan to let Potter _think_ it's just him and Weasley going to check out Mulligan, but I'm going to follow them, to see what I can find out. The class instructor – a homely looking guy who claims to be an expert in tracking Dark suspects – taught us a nifty spell that makes your wand point towards the direction of the suspect. You just have to get close enough to perform the spell on them in the first place.

Of course, it'd be difficult to apply this spell if you're chasing Dark criminals you've never met across the country, but for my purposes, all I have to do is be in the same room as Potter.

So, right after training ended, I snuck away from the crowd and made my way back to Potter's office. I didn't know whether he'd be there or not, but he does work ridiculous hours, so I was counting on it.

His office looks even more dull and boring by night than it did by day. Plain beige walls, horrid thin carpet. It's like he doesn't even care about power and status. Right now it's empty but I'm sure if I hang around, he'll stop by.

A few minutes later, I am bored silly. Looking around the office isn't interesting – the only personal item Potter has is a mug that says World's Best Seeker on it, and I've already decided against stealing that. Because I'm one of the good guys, remember? And good guys don't steal things, even if the person who has it doesn't deserve it. Plus it has tea stains in it.

I step over to Potter's filing cabinet – surely if there was anything sensitive in here, he'd be clever enough to actually lock his door before leaving? It's probably just junk. So I pull open the top drawer, labelled A-D.

To my surprise, I see a file labelled 'Draco', which strikes me as odd for two reasons. Firstly, he wouldn't spy on me – he wouldn't need to, I don't _go_ anywhere. Secondly, wouldn't I be under 'Malfoy'? What kind of idiot organizes surveillance files by first name.

So I pull out that file with curiosity. Inside it is a bundle of unorganized newspaper clippings. All the articles ever written about me – about Potter and me – are here. Why would he keep these? There are even articles I've never seen before, from magazines and papers I've never heard of. One of them looks to be in German.

Is he building up evidence against me, or something? I think in panic. But then I remember that it wasn't me who wrote the articles, it was Skeeter. So I'm the innocent victim in all this. I wonder _why-_

"Malfoy, what the fuck are you doing?"

Oh crap. The plan.

"Er—good evening Potter." I say, trying to act casual, not guilty. Not caught red-handed snooping through secret files.

Potter stomps over to me and snatches all the clippings out of my hands, and if you've ever had a handful of newspaper clippings snatched from your hand, it won't surprise you to learn that he manages to scatter them all over the floor. We both curse.

"Thanks a lot." Potter says, exasperated. He quickly bends down and starts scraping the newspapers from the carpet. "What do you think you're playing at?"

"I was waiting for you." I say, projecting innocence. "And I saw all these…"

"Ah yes, with your famous Malfoy see-through-closed-cabinets-vision?" Snaps Potter, getting redder and redder in the face, presumably with rage.

"Why do you even _have_ those?" I ask, frankly. "Surely we're trying to forget this whole thing?"

"It's none of your bloody business, Malfoy. Now what did you want?" Potter says, starting to crawl under the desk for more paper.

"Oh, erm…" I hesitate, not having thought up a cover story for my plan. I start to fish out my wand while he's under the table. "You know, I just wanted to… ask. So, how are you?"

"Fucking fantastic." His voice comes from under the desk. "Can you leave now?"

I quickly cast the Tracking Spell non-verbally, pray it works, and make haste out of there.

An hour or so later, after I've gotten home, sat through dinner, ran upstairs to get changed, I am sitting on my bed, dressed in my best super-spy outfit, and I cast the other part of the Tracking Spell. I put my wand on my bed and watch it spin around a few times, glowing red.

My wand goes green and points West. And I think, well now what? Do I have to walk there? Should I grab my broomstick? I really should have thought this through. Or at least researched the spell. Or maybe listened to the teacher in the first place.

I go to pick up my wand and sort myself out, and as I touch it, I feel a strange sensation. A picture appears in my mind of an alleyway next to a townhouse in London. I have to Apparate to that place. What a cool spell!

So I hurry up out of my room. I make my way out of the house, and when I run by my confused looking mother I call out to her that I'm on a secret mission and I'll be back before midnight. I pass the wards that surround the Manor and its lands.

As soon as I'm out of the gates, I immediately Apparate. The chest tightening becomes unbearable for a moment, then with a _pop_ I can breathe again, and I suck in several grateful breaths. Merlin, that was weird, I didn't even have to concentrate on the picture I saw - my wand just knew where to go. No wonder that dreary looking fellow said that this spell required Ministry permission to operate.

I look around, finding myself in the correct alleyway. The dustbins smell like rotting food, it's starting to rain, and there's a homeless Muggle man and his dog blocking the exit. He wants spare change, so I just tell him I don't _do_ Muggle money and get the heck out of there.

As I round the corner, I see Weasley's distinct red hair, and Potter right next to him. They're walking away from me so they don't see me. They duck into the next alley over, presumably to put on Potter's invisibility cloak. I turn my back on the alley and pretend to be waiting at a Muggle mass transport stop. I put up my hood.

A few moments later, I hear their shuffling footsteps going right by me. They are whispering amongst themselves, not even aware of me, and I have to stifle a laugh. This is their espionage? Pathetic. I bet they're not even wearing spy outfits. I was going to use my Tracking Spell again to point their way, but I quickly Disillusion myself and follow their shuffling, stumbling, swearing footsteps.

I stay close to the wall, trying to stay out of the rain and out of sight. I hear them stop and Potter whispering to Weasley that Mulligan's house is the one with the red door. Then I hear them arguing about 'the plan'. Weasley wants them both to stay under the cloak, but Potter wants one of them to distract Mulligan while the other one searches the place for evidence.

Personally, I think Potter's idea is better, but I'm not about to spend 45 minutes listening to a debate about it. So I step up to the red door and knock loudly three times, then stick close to the wall so I'm not seen.

As Mulligan opens his door, and steps out in the street in frustration to see who knocked, I duck behind him and all of a sudden I'm inside his tiny, cramped sitting room. There's space for a small sofa, a side table and a fireplace. I squeeze by it all and go through to his kitchen, which is equally cramped. I've always despised two-up two-downs.

I slowly head upstairs as Mulligan shuts the front door with a curse, conscious of the creaking floorboards beneath my feet. The door to his office is open, so I step into it and pause, trying to hear what Mulligan is doing next. He might see me in the brightly lit office if I'm not more hidden.

Thankfully, it sounds like he's making himself a cup of tea – I hear bustling and clanking from the kitchen. So I hurry over to his writing desk and go through the papers on them. Tonight he seems to be writing about the history of the Code of Wand Use and how it has changed recently, one of those dry 'informational' articles that gets pushed off to the side somewhere as a feature, certainly not main-page material.

So I start going through his desk drawers, looking for envelopes, memos, or anything that could carry a message.

As I'm fruitlessly looking – Mulligan's office is a crowded, disorganised mess – I hear more knocks on the door. I tense up to listen. Mulligan's footsteps creak across the floor, and I can hear him muttering to himself. He opens the door, pauses, and lets out a swear.

"You damned thugs! Leave my house alone!"

The door slams again, and I hear the magical clicks of locks, letting me know I'm going to have a hard time getting out of here. I try to hurry up with my search, knowing that as soon as Mulligan is done making tea, he's going to be back up here to work. But I can't make sense of these papers – hundreds and thousands of them, all out of order. Mulligan must be one of those people who 'finds' things simply by Summoning them.

A small creak on the upper landing is enough to make me freeze. I think my heart even freezes because there's no place to hide in here except under the desk, which I doubt will help if he sits down and traps me underneath.

My heart refuses to beat while the door slowly creaks open. Has time slowed down? Am I in a cheap Muggle horror film? Does Mulligan know I'm here, and he's got a wandful of Killing curses just for me?

The door opens wide… and no one is there.

"Potter." I breathe, my heart making up for its lack of beating with rapid-fire palpitations.

"Malfoy, for fuck's sake. Can't you ever leave anything alone?"

"I could ask you the very same." I shoot back, hissing. "Now help me look. This place is a mess."

We hurriedly go through Mulligan's remaining desk drawers, and his filing cabinet – which is filled with junk, no actual paper. I find a small hard black thing that Potter informs me used to be a banana peel. Fuck. There's no evidence here, and if there is, the chances of us coming across it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. We can't even summon it, because we don't know exactly what we're looking for.

Soon enough, we hear Mulligan's own footsteps – heavy and careless stomping, more like – and I freeze again.

Potter lets out an annoyed-sounding sigh, and then I feel him bump into me and throw the silky, silvery cloak on top of me a second before Mulligan bursts into the room, still muttering to himself about the kids outside playing knock-a-door-run. He sets down his tea, and Potter and I shuffle off to the side as he heads toward the window.

Mulligan opens the window wide, it's one of those sliding windows that you have to lift up, and his house is so old that he has to prop it up with a piece of wood. He's expecting an owl.

Suddenly, as Potter and I are squashed together awkwardly to stay out of Mulligan's way in his tiny office, I realise why Potter kept those clippings. He _fancies_ me!

Of course! It's obvious! Well, now that we're in ridiculously close quarters, it's definitely obvious. As a polite member of society I would never point it out, but as a Slytherin, I know that's not his wand in his pocket.

Part of me wants to have a bit of fun with this new-found information, but my sensible side says I should tuck it away and use it when it really benefits me. So I stay hunched, pretend not to notice, and focus on the window.

As Mulligan hums to himself and writes, clacking away on his typewriter, I can't help but think. Has Potter had a crush on me all this time? Is that why he testified for me? It certainly would explain a lot, especially his behaviour at the Charity Ball. He's probably secretly been loving all the attention from the press – though maybe that's what prevented him from making his move. Not that he should ever make a move on me, because even if I was gay, which I'm not, but if I was then Potter's not even my type.

Just then, his breath right on my ear is ticklish, so it sends a shiver right through me. "We should go." He whispers.

I put my finger to my lips in a shushing motion, and shake my head. There'll be an owl here _any minute_ and Potter just wants to leave? What if the owl is from the informant?

So we wait it out. Strange how ten awkward, silent minutes feels a lot like ten lifetimes. But eventually, a flapping noise and hooting and rustling invades the tiny space. Mulligan's owl is pretty bog-standard, nothing that stands out from the crowd. Which I expect is just how he likes it.

I urge Potter to shuffle with me so we can get behind Mulligan as he reads the letter, which is more like a torn off scrap of parchment, really.

_Lunchtime – usual place. V._

Great. Nothing.

Mulligan crumples up the parchment and throws it on the ground – I swear, this man is a pig. Disappointed, I just want to get out of here.

I start to nudge Potter towards the door, but he grips my arm and points to the window, that has been left open even though the owl has gone.

I struggle against Potter's grip. I'm _not_ jumping out of any windows. I'll take my chance on the creaky stairs, thank you very much. But Potter doesn't yield. I understand what he's saying. The Cloak is his, so if he goes, it goes. And I don't want to be stuck here in this brightness with nothing but a shoddy Disillusionment Charm.

So here we go. I can do this. We step up onto the windowsill. I take a deep breath. Start to count-

And I land with a soft _thwump_.

"You pushed me! You fucking _pushed_ me!" I hiss, climbing off the Cushioning Charm as Potter lands invisibly next to me. "Wait, what's going on?"

Weasley shushes me and grabs me, dragging me through Mulligan's back garden and off into an alleyway at the side of his house.

"We actually investigated the surroundings before we barged right in, Malfoy." Says Weasley with what seems like a permanently disgusted expression on his face. Oh yes. _That_ whole business. I almost forgot.

"And what if Mulligan hadn't opened the window at all?" I say. "Would we have broken through it?"

"I was going to knock on the door again." Weasley says, suddenly proud of himself.

"Come on." Puts in Potter. "We need to get out of here, we can't all fit under the Cloak."

I never realised how bossy Potter was, as he grabs us both and Apparates suddenly.

We arrive with a _pop _and I wrench myself away from Potter with a gasp. "First you push me out of a window, now kidnap? You can't just Apparate someone like that!"

I look around at where we are, and recognise it immediately. The doorstep of Grimmauld Place! I immediately forget my outrage, and ignore Potter and Weasley's protests as I let myself in.

Potter runs in behind me, telling me to shush. But I don't listen. I deposit my cloak on the rack, and greet my nasty Aunt Walburga's portrait with a bow. She gushes about how tall I am, and how _blond_, definitely Malfoy... my mother not as much of a harlot as she thought, etc. The usual.

It's only when I start down towards the kitchen and she catches sight of Potter and Weasley that her screaming begins, and I have to stifle a laugh. Good old Walburga.

When they've finally shut her up, they both stomp downstairs and find me preparing myself a sandwich.

"Wow, make yourself at home, Malfoy." Potter remarks.

"This _is _my home, actually." I reply darkly. "We were next in the bloodline to inherit it, remember?"

Potter looks like that vaguely rings a bell, and nabs the other half of my sandwich. "Yeah? Well, thankfully all that bloodline stuff is rubbish, because this has been a useful little hideout for us."

I nod, mouth full of ham and cheese, knowing the extent of the Defensive Charms on this place. "I bet."

"Erm, not to interrupt." Interrupts Weasley. I shoot him a glare. "But what happened up there?"

"Nothing at all," I say. "It was a complete waste of time."

"What are you on about, Malfoy? We found out _more_ than we wanted to know! I thought he opened the window just to get some air, I was shocked when that owl came."

"And what did the message say?" Asks Weasley. "Anything incriminating?"

"It said who the informant was and where and when they'll be meeting tomorrow." Potter says with a grin. Mine and Weasley's faces match – both confused and eager.

"How did you get _that_ from that message?" I say. "All it said was 'lunchtime – usual place. V." I say, wondering whose last name starts with V. I can't put my finger on it. The Arithmancy professor at Hogwarts was Ms. Vector, but I thought she died?

"Oh yes!" Exclaims Weasley. He high fives Potter and I am even more confused.

Potter takes pity on me and decides to explain. "You see, this past week we've had an Auror Trainee leaving the Ministry every day for lunch. I asked Duncan to do some trailing for me, just in case. It turned out innocent enough – a quick lunch alone at a local restaurant. Until that owl came."

"And you think this trainee is the culprit?" I say, confused. But then it all clicks into place. "Vanessa!"

"Exactly. The only thing is, her attendance is always perfect. I don't understand how she could have been pilfering evidence after hours."

Now it's my turn to take pity on them. "Okay, well that part is easy. She must have an accomplice somewhere who goes to her lessons disguised as her. Look at her marks, to see if there's a pattern."

Potter and Weasley gawp at me. "Merlin, why didn't we think of that? And how come you did?"

"As soon as you mentioned someone being in two places at once, it was pretty easy actually." I boast, wiping crumbs off the counter.

"Wait a minute. So you've known how it could be done _all along?"_ Weasley says, getting seriously high-pitched. "And you didn't tell us, _why?_"

"As if I was going to incriminate myself – I was the prime suspect, remember? You would have raided my house looking for Polyjuice Potion."

"No we wouldn't have." Says Potter, with determination in his voice. But Weasley's face says the opposite.

"Anyway." I try to get the subject back on track. "When are we going to apprehend Vanessa? Can I be there?"

"We can't, Malfoy. We don't have any evidence yet. No legal evidence anyway." Potter says, adding the last part in response to my facial expression.

I cross my arms in frustration. "Well you lot will have to keep extra tabs on her then. And I can trail her lunchtime activities tomorrow. She'll never suspect me, even if she sees me."

Weasley doesn't seem to like that idea, but Potter consents.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Little bit late, little bit short, but here it is, for your reading pleasure :)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Before I know it, I've had a fitful night's sleep and it's already approaching lunchtime. Vanessa has been acting completely normally all morning, and I'm actually quite impressed with her acting skills.

But it's starting to occur to me that on our first day, we were evenly matched at dueling, and I'll have to go out into Muggle London all by myself and face her. What if she overpowers me? What if a Muggle steals my wand and beats me up?

Not that I'm scared. I've been into Muggle London loads of times already, and I've practiced dueling since then.

So when Vanessa leaves the Ministry for her lunch, I take a deep breath, transfigure my hair to a dull, blend-in-the-crowd mousy brown colour, and trail her for a few streets. It's getting cold wearing just Muggle clothes, but the cloaks they wear are short and puffy and hideous, so I suck it up.

Soon enough, I see her enter into a small doorway of a pub called The Slug And Lettuce. I can't believe some of the things these Muggles eat, seriously. Thankfully I spot a flower shop across the road, and risking life and limb, I dodge between the Muggle Mobiles and buy a large bouquet that'll cover my face once I'm inside.

I go inside, and thankfully it is dim and crowded enough that I feel like I can blend in okay, but not so crowded that I end up seated on the opposite side of the restaurant. The waitress lets me choose where I sit, and I stride confidently over to where Vanessa is seated, bouquet resting on my shoulder casually, and sit with my back to her, a few tables over.

The waitress hurries off to fetch my Merlot, and a vase for my flowers. I don't turn to check how close I've gotten, or whether Vanessa saw me, I just sit and hope that I'll be able to hear her alright when Mulligan arrives.

This pub isn't that bad, I realise as I start to look around. Solid wooden tables and chairs, none of that weird Muggle decor where they make everything plastic and metal. Crinkled leather sofas against the wall for people in larger groups. A black box with moving people in it, like a bigger version of a photo frame, is hung up on the wall and depicts a sporting event. Everything shows signs of wear but it still functional, which reminds me of The Three Broomsticks, but a bit darker colour scheme.

I'm almost done with my first drink when I notice with a start that Mulligan has just clomped his way past me, and I remember why I'm here. Not for the ambiance.

"You better have brought Muggle money." Snaps Mulligan gruffly.

But before I can hear Vanessa's reply, the waitress is back. "More wine?"

I don't stop her as she refills my glass, then she puts it on the table and pulls out a notebook. "Have you decided what you want?"

What I want for you is to go away, I think to myself. But I point at a random thing on the menu, so she scribbles it down, picks the wine back up and once again scurries off.

Another waitress is taking their drink order by the time mine leaves, so I wait for them to hum and haw over what they want.

Once all those important decisions have been made, and their waitress also leaves, Mulligan gets straight back to business. "So what have you got for me?"

"Shacklebolt is making Potter the Head Auror." Vanessa's voice comes, suddenly and smugly. The creaking of his chair and coughing noises indicate that Mulligan just about had a heart attack. I can tell because I almost did, too, and I hit my chest a few times so I don't choke on my mouthful of wine.

"But the boy's only, what, eighteen?" Mulligan splutters.

"Only just. He's good looking, and the public loves him, but I was shocked they'd even suggest it! I can't believe-"

"More wine?" I jump out of my skin as my waitress appears out of nowhere, once again refilling my empty drink. I wonder if it is normal practice for Muggles to drink this much at lunchtime.

"Your food is on it's way, we're a bit backed up in the kitchen right now." The waitress says, sounding apologetic but beaming.

"You know what, cancel it." I say. I throw my fresh wine back in one swallow to gather my strength, then I fish in my pockets for the Muggle money Potter lent me for this mission. I can't possibly count it so I just give her all of it and start to stumble out.

As I pull the main door open, I barge into something sharp and skinny. Skeeter.

"You." I scowl, smoothing my Muggle clothes down. She is as ostentatiously dressed and made-up as ever, as if she doesn't even care that she stands out.

"What a unique cologne." Skeeter says, referring to my breath. "I wonder what you'd be up to in a Muggle establishment… something tells me the wine was just a bonus?"

My brain feels somewhat sluggish, and I'm not sure I understand what she's hinting at. "Wuh?" I manage.

Skeeter ever so gently tugs me from the entrance, where people are trying to come and go, and does that thing where she acts nice, but she's actually poised to strike, like a Python. "I don't suppose I'll find my dear friend Mulligan in there with you, would I?" She says, treacle-sweet.

"No." I lie, automatically.

"Because you'd never betray your old friend Rita, would you?" She continues, her fingernails digging deeper and deeper. "After all we've been through together. The War, the rumours…"

I wrench myself free, disgust filling me at her even mentioning the War. "Get lost, Skeeter. I have to get back to work."

Then I storm off, trying not to wobble. I'm sure Skeeter will go into The Slug and Lettuce and see Vanessa and Mulligan and have her victory, even if it's not the exact scoop she wanted. But if I can get back to the Ministry and tell someone in time, then maybe…

But, maybe what? Potter must already know he's going to make Head Auror. He probably planned it all along. But he's too young, and he wasn't even brought up with our ways. How can he run a whole Department when he's only been in our world for what, seven years? And he's only been working at the Ministry for a few months.

But Potter has always seemed to seek power - he moped around for weeks when he wasn't made a Prefect. He led Dumbledore's Army. He slotted himself right into the highest ranks of the Auror program, despite zero N.E. and no training. He thinks he deserves it all on a plate, just because he continues to exist, by virtue of simply not dying.

Well, I didn't die either, so what is stopping me being the Head Auror? Exactly. Nothing.

I have a horrible sense of having no idea what is right and wrong any more, since Potter is scheming for power, Auror trainees are working for the enemy, and I never wanted to fit into this ridiculous paradigm anyway. And maybe I drank a little bit too much.

I burst into the Auror Department not long after, and ignore the commands of the Aurors and the puzzled looks of my fellow trainees. I stomp over to Potter's office, and don't even knock before I go in. I enter and point an accusing finger at him, breathing deeply from all the hurrying.

"Potter, you fool." I say, not entirely sure it didn't come out as 'Fotter, you pool'.

"Malfoy, what are you doing back so early? Have you been drinking?" Potter stands up, looking worried. He walks over to me and closes the door behind me. "What did you find out?"

"Only two." I tell him, and grip his arms so he stops spinning in figure 8's. "Vanessa was right about you. You might have the looks but you've got no clue, Potter. Didn't anyone tell you it'd be a bad idea?"

Potter peers at me confused for a second, but then his face registers understanding, and he has the grace to at least look sheepish. "Well yes, Ron and Hermione did. Loads of times."

Huh, I didn't expect him to admit it this easily. But I suppose the secret's going to be out soon anyway.

"But I've done what people expect for years, I reckon I should be going after what_ I_ want for a change, you know?" He continues, determination in his voice, looking into my face.

"Right, like it's going to surprise anyone." I scoff sarcastically, letting go of his arms. "Everyone pretty much expects it to happen."

"Really?" Potter says, with a tone in his voice that I can't recognise.

"Of course." I say. "Not this fast, obviously. But eventually, it was bound to happen. Shacklebolt obviously knew it, I knew it-"

And before I've finished my thought, Potter has leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine.

My head spins, my heart beat thuds loudly, and my lips tingle. Right after my eyes drift closed of their own accord, I come to my senses and pull away.

"Wha- why - I mean... What the fuck was that, Potter?" I say, half-way between a stammer and a coherent sentence. Stupid wine.

"What do you think it was?" Potter says with a bit of a grin, and licks his top lip. "You taste good, you know."

My stomach flips in embarrassment. "Okay, somewhere we've gone off track here, clearly." I say, pushing Potter back in a panic as he goes in for another round.

"How did we get from _you_ being made Head Auror to…" I can't even say it. "_This_?"

"Head Auror? What are you on about?" Potter says, taking a small step back.

"What did you think I was on about?!" I exclaim hysterically.

Now it's Potter's turn to stammer. "You! Us! You were clearly on about us! You said I was good looking! You said it was bound to happen!"

I'm starting to wonder if Potter doesn't also have a few drinks at lunchtime.

"No, you becoming Head Auror was bound to happen, you idiot. I told you - Vanessa spilled the beans to Mulligan, it's likely going to be front page news by the morning." I say, crossing my arms defensively, but trying to sound calm.

"You didn't say that at all." Potter says accusingly, stepping back a bit more, to put some distance between us. "Not one word of it."

"I think I remember what I said." I snap, resolutely. But now I'm not sure.

"And I think you're a bastard, Malfoy. Have I told you that you're the absolute worst spy I've ever seen?"

This hits a nerve. "Excuse me, who is practically solving this case for you? And I only got caught that one time!"

Except, then I remember that I was also caught this time. Technically. By Skeeter again. But Potter doesn't need to know that.

"Getting drunk and giving incoherent reports hardly counts as solving anything, Malfoy." Potter snaps back at me. "What exactly do you think you've solved?"

"Well, I've proved that Vanessa is the one leaking Ministry information to The Prophet." I say, ticking off one finger. "And secondly, I've proved that you're still a power-hungry show-off who gets special treatment. And a bloody pervert. If you take the Head Auror position, I'm resigning."

Potter puts his hand through his hair, face flushing to match mine. "Okay, I don't know how it's going 'round that I'm going to be the Head Auror, because I'm not. It'd be idiotic - what do I know about running a Ministry department, for crying out loud?"

"Well that's what'll be in the papers tomorrow. I heard Vanessa clearly say it. Mulligan wasn't happy about it, either, if it helps." I say, shrugging. "Maybe you've been promoted and you just don't know it yet."

"We'll see about that." Potter snaps, and grips me by the arm. "We're going to see Shacklebolt."


End file.
